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are elsewhere; schools are in another direction. That sounds like Rappahannock County today. Right? What’s the difference?
The difference is that the county’s main business is agriculture and farmland has not yet been carpeted with, say, 6.000 home sites built by one developer, or 500 homes built by another builder, or 4,000 homes by a third developer. Nor is there a high-tech business that employs 30,000 people, or another company with 5.000 employees and so forth. It’s a matter of scale. The county still has the same small villages it had in the 1800s, and just outside of each village you still have farms, open fields and wooded hillsides.
Rappahannock has not yet been exploited. In a worst case economic scenario, the county could still raise crops and livestock and feed itself. Intelligent land use and the preservation of farmland are the key elements in preventing sprawl. Once “growth” makes its appearance in the county, then the sprawl community will move in big time. At that point, outside residential and commercial developers, realtors, bankers, the construction trades, and transportation elements will take over the county and run it however they want.
And early warning signs abound. Nearby counties are wrestling with development on a scale that makes Rappahannock County look like Shangri-La. Every year, Loudoun County increases its population by the current population of this county. Fauquier County recently approved a 667-home development over the vehement objections of a great many of its residents. Culpeper County is contemplating a “beltway” around the town of Culpeper and four-laning U.S. 522 right to the border of Rappahannock County. There are large housing developments in existence,
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