Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 6, 1995 TAG: 9508070057
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER NOTE: below
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
If Virginia is for lovers, then people in our corner of the state seem to love it more than most.
Almost half of those in the Roanoke and New River valleys who were surveyed in the Virginia Commonwealth University poll - 48 percent, to be precise - said they rated Virginia an excellent place to live.
That was well above the statewide average of 37 percent.
And what people in Western Virginia were saying bore little resemblance to the opinions of their counterparts in Hampton Roads, where only 28 percent of those surveyed rated Virginia as an excellent place to call home.
The results astonished pollster Bob Holsworth, who says he included the question in the survey mostly as a "warm-up."
"It's really fascinating," he says. "People in the Roanoke Valley love Virginia."
What gives?
The clue, he says, may be found in some of the questions that were intended to fill in the demographic details about who was being surveyed.
Our part of the state is simply a lot more stable: 67 percent of those in the Roanoke and New River valleys had lived here all their lives; the state average was only 48 percent. In transient Hampton Roads, the figure fell to 42 percent.
The poll - commissioned by The Roanoke Times and its sister paper in Norfolk, The Virginian-Pilot - surveyed enough people to provide scientifically valid pictures of both communities, in addition to the statewide figures.
``The supposition is `Boy, you're going to see an awful lot of frustration in Southwest Virginia,''' Holsworth says. ``You didn't.''
Instead, the answers from the Roanoke and New River valleys pretty much matched the answers statewide. Even the question "Does your region get its fair share of government services and benefits?" produced few discernible regional differences: 56 percent of those statewide said their region got its fair share; so did 54 percent of those in Western Virginia, despite frequent complaints that the largely rural region is being left out of decision-making as the state's population base shifts to the east.
It was on the lifestyle questions, though, that the biggest regional differences emerged: 40 percent of those in the Roanoke and New River valleys rated their county or city as an "excellent" place to live. The statewide rate was 37 percent. But in Hampton Roads, only 28 percent were so keen on their locality.
Holsworth suggests the difference is likely because of Western Virginia's being more rural, less transient and less crime-prone. "Roanoke is more community-oriented; it's a nice picture," he says.
Perhaps that's why we're more civic-minded, too: 62 percent of those surveyed here said they "definitely" intended to vote in this fall's legislative elections. That was six percentage points higher than Hampton Roads and seven percentage points higher than the statewide average.
by CNB