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AFTER ONE of our weekly commentaries about the necessity of saving this beautiful Virginia Piedmont of ours from the crassness of suburban and shopping center sprawl, a reader threw down a challenge. “You’ve stated the problem, all right,’’ he said, “but when are you going to start spelling out some solutions?”
Well, that wasn’t quite as good a question as it sounded like. For many people, just stating the problem comes as an eye-opening shocker. People keep telling us things, like, “You know, I never thought of it that way—the best farm land really is the best land for septic tanks, and that means all the best farmland is being taken out of production first.” Things like that.
But, still, the challenge deserves a reply, and we must admit that we just don’t have a whole bagfull of ready-made cure-alls. We suspect they don’t exist. We do, however, have quite a bagfull of unanswered questions pertaining to the problem of saving the farmland, some directly related and some related by more or less three-cushion shots. Here’s a few samples:
• Why do local governments, which profess to be carrying out the perceived wishes of the electorate in trying to “controll” growth, talk about their efforts behind closed doors? Why can’t they let the public in on what they’re trying to do for the public? No wonder the
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