This fantastic article appeared in the December 29 edition of the New York Times highlighting the city’s new Arts Museum to be opened in November of 2008.

There has been much discussion on this structure, and certainly this type of exposure is what was expected. We can anticipate more, similar coverage as we get closer to the opening.

Certainly, this positive PR helps with economic development, people recruitment, tourism and making Roanoke an overall cool city with YPs in the Creative Class.

The economic development committee of Leadership Roanoke Valley put on one of the more creative approaches to regional economic development I have seen. They had a talk-show theme and used a lot of multimedia and outside speakers to present the cases for  economic growth that is too fast, too slow and just right. I was honored to be part of the panel on how to get it just right.

The discussion was intense and a lot of feedback and Q&A occurred prior, during and afterwards. You could sense from the organizers that they were ready to take the torch and act on some of these suggested approaches and ideas that was discussed.

Let’s hope their good effort does not go unnoticed, as I and others would like to see a DVD of the entire day.

Great job to this group and for their leadership in the community.

The very popular Bacon’s Rebellion blog made this post on November 2 in response to the Roanoke Valley Economic Development Partnership news on November 1 outlining their new strategy.  What is amazing is that the post received 42 comments - yes 42 comments. What does this tell us about the interest in the plan, the city or the popularity of the blog? First, it seems people think the plan is sound. Second, a lot of people have an affinity for Roanoke. Three, this blog gets a lot of people talking online and we need more Roanoke blogs engaging people about these important topics.