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Editorial
Telecommutiiig
We received by fax a 10-page press release stating that at AT&T this past Tuesday 13 percent of the workforce would be telecommuting, working from their homes rather than from their company’s offices.
i A one-day demonstration is not significant, but the trend to telecommuting is of great potential importance for Rappahannock County.1 1 Using computers, modems and fax machines, workers can do their work from home, sparing themselves the time and expense of a daily commute.
The press release goes into great detail about potential savings of gasoline and reduced polution, increased productivity, and reduced guilt on the part of parents who now have children coming home from school to an empty house. -
Currently Rappahannock County has a fairly large 1 proportion of retired people. They are increasingly important in supporting the enormous variety of community organizations which make this county so pleasant.
We have also a cliurning population of workers who commute to the Washington metropolitan area. Some try for a few years, and then tire of the longer and longer commute times and move closer to their jobs. We have, like the rest of the country, a growing population of families with two wage earners. Many of our school children have parents who leave s before first light and return after dark during the winter. M^ny of these parents arrive home too tired to invest energy in community affairs.
We have also a growing portion of our housing in the hands of weekenders. Some of these are very involved in community affairs. Some seek only escape during their weekends here. Most expect one day to join the ranks of the retirees. ,
What will happen if it is possible to live in Rappahannock and work for a company in the Washington metropolitan area without ever leaving home? One likely result will be to make the area more desireable as a place to live. Like the prospect of jobs closer to the county in Gainsville or Haymarket, this will put increasing pressure on the county’s resources. It will make preserving farmland more difficult.
Rappahannock County cannot hold back these trends. We can only seek to balance residential growth with other growth so that the burden on the real estate tax rate does not force an end to our rural lifestyle.
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