A friend sent a recent post about a blogger’s perception that Roanokers don’t recognize points west of Southwest Virginia. The post also called out the young professional groups in Roanoke to reach out to this population in this geographic region.
First, it is my personal belief that the region is defined by the television media market. I have been watching WDBJ 7 since growing up near Smith Mountain Lake and living in a number of surrounding communities and Keith Humphrey, Robin Reed and Mike Stevens have been the same newscasters since I can remember. That unites us all.
Second, in Northern Virginia when someone says they live in Leesburg and work in Alexandria - that is considered the same region. Yet, it may take 1.5 hours to commute. Draw a 1.5 hour driving distance circle around Roanoke and you will begin to hit some of those areas the blogger mentions in his post. The geographical boundary of the mountains continues to separate the region.
Third, far Southwest has a great program called Return to Roots, which is trying to get people to return to that part of the state to fill open positions. A young professional organization (YPO) should be created around that program and jointly work on these common issues that face Roanoke, Lynchburg, Danville and all of Virginia west of Richmond. There have been more than several times, the leaders in each of these communities have come together to tackle the brain drain problem and it is reported in the most recent edition of the Virginia Business magazine.
Finally, we need more people living in one community and working in another community within the region. Many live in Christiansburg or Blacksburg and make the commute to Roanoke and Salem on a daily basis and vice versa. It takes 40 minutes. More learning about each community occurs when people make these commutes.
It is all one big region.