ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, February 4, 1996 TAG: 9602060006
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: F-2 EDITION: METRO
OUR BEAUTIFUL corner of Virginia finds itself wanting growth, but not at the expense of quality of life. This is a sensible attitude.
After all, quality of life - a good bit of it based on our natural scenery and community feel - is one of the region's top assets in attracting development.
Now, therefore, would seem a good time to shed old ways we've tended to talk about growth. On one side, too many fail to appreciate the value of a dynamic economy in supporting the amenities they enjoy. On the other, too many fail to appreciate the need for serious, regional planning - to ensure that the growth they want is sustained, can build higher incomes, and won't ruin what they like about living here.
This shouldn't be a sterile squabble between tree-huggers and rapacious developers. The issue is more subtle than that, and more important. Indeed, smart pro-growthers would count a lot of the tree-huggers among their allies.
Consider the case of the Pacific Northwest.
Lurking somewhere in its hushed, dark forests, flitting about in the habitat of the spotted owl, is a fact that the environment vs. jobs crowd either doesn't know, or is loath to acknowledge: Overall, the region's economy is booming.
And the good times, says a group of economists, are occurring not despite moves to protect the natural landscape, but because of them.
It seems planning measures that make life possible for nature also make life pleasant for humans - pleasant enough to be cited as the main reason why, in the regional economy of Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana, employment grew 18 percent and personal income 24 percent from 1988 to 1994. Both growth rates were more than twice the national average.
What, then, of all the oft-cited job losses in the timber industry, wielded like a chainsaw against environmental laws such as the Endangered Species Act? The region has lost about 25,000 timber jobs in the past few years, the economists agreed. But, they said, more jobs have disappeared because of new, labor-saving equipment and the export of logs than have been lost as a result of environmental restrictions.
And at the same time that jobs are dwindling in the region's traditional mainstay industries - timber and aerospace - more are being created in diverse industries related to high technology, from chip fabrication to software development.
Washington lost 4,900 timber jobs, the economists found, but gained 15,000 jobs in the software industry. Idaho lost mining jobs, but gained four times as many in high technology.
Why is high tech growing by such leaps in the Northwest? The main factor, according to this report, is the region's quality of life. The forests of this wildly beautiful region remain an important natural resource - but more valuable standing up than cut down.
Roanokers who want to attract higher-income jobs here should take heed. Though our region's economy continues to chug along, there is danger in complacency and poor, uncoordinated planning; danger, too, in continuing to push our growth debate down outmoded tracks.
If we persist in believing that the only choice is between a stagnant economy disconnected from the world, and ugly sprawl as far as the eye can see, we're more likely to end up with both.
LENGTH: Medium: 62 linesby CNB