Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 13, 1993                   TAG: 9310130264
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MICHAEL STOWE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: MOUNTAIN LAKE                                LENGTH: Medium

CONSULTANT URGES NEW RIVER VALLEY NOT TO OVERLOOK NEEDS OF NEIGHBOR

That was the simple message that David Rusk, author of the book "Cities Without Suburbs" and a Washington, D.C., urban consultant, delivered at Tuesday's New Century Forum.

The most common question from New River Valley leaders since the New Century Council's inception this summer has been: What's in it for us?

"I gather this certainly hasn't been love at first sight," Rusk said. "Maybe it's time you got accustomed to seeing each other's faces."

There's been an underlying feeling from some that the New Century Council was designed to create growth in the Roanoke Valley by strengthening its connection with Virginia Tech.

Most New River representatives said they were pleased with Tuesday's meeting, but admitted there's probably still a bit of skepticism about the visioning process.

"It kind of dispelled some of the uncomfortable attitudes," said Beth Ifju, president of the Blacksburg Chamber of Commerce.

Franklyn Moreno, executive director of the New River Valley Economic Alliance, supports the New Century Council but worries it may overlap with New River's efforts to develop a defense-conversion economic strategy.

The Defense Department awarded the New River Planning District Commission a $197,800 grant this year. In the past two years, more than 2,000 jobs have been lost at the Radford Army Ammunition Plant.

This summer the New River Valley Economic Alliance sponsored a series of workshops in New River localities - much like Tuesday's meeting - to brainstorm for ideas on the area's potential growth.

Moreno said the federal grant requires that effort to continue regardless of other regional projects, but added that information from those meetings has been shared with New Century's leaders.

Tuesday's meeting "was a good beginning. . . . We'll have to see what happens," he said.

A closer relationship between Roanoke and both Virginia Tech and Radford University are critical to the New River Valley's economic future, Rusk said.

Virginia Tech recently ranked in the top 50 percent of the nation's 204 major universities, according to a U.S. News and World Report survey of college administrators.

Rusk pointed out that Virginia Tech is one of only 29 of those universities not in a metropolitan area.

Among the top 25 percent, only two schools - Cornell in Ithaca, N.Y., and Dartmouth in Hanover, N.H. - aren't in metropolitan areas.

Clarkson University, Clemson University and the University of Missouri were among schools ranked with Tech in the top 50 percent that aren't in large cities.

"The list doesn't really represent any powerhouse institutions," he said.

More importantly, Rusk said, is that Ithaca and Hanover are the only small localities with colleges that have a family income above the national average.

The rest are 10 to 15 percent below the national average, he said.

"[Colleges] may be engines of employment, but they aren't supplying the impetus to really move up to the national average," he said. "You need to have a critical mass bringing together people and the institution in some effective partnership."

Jim Stewart, regional director of the Center for Innovative Technology at New River Community College, said Tuesday's meeting opened up a much-needed dialogue between the two valleys.

"I was happy to see so many people still here at the end of the day," he said.