By Kevin Allen Rappahannock News Staff Writer Class was

By Kevin Allen

Rappahannock News Staff Writer

Class was back in session last week at The Schoolhouse in Sperryville.

Some 100 people flocked to the Living Tbwns workshop on May 31 to share their ideas and concerns for guiding growth and preservation in the Piedmont’s small towns.

The annual event has been sponsored by the Rappahannock-Rapidan Regional Commission for the past six years. The commission serves Culpeper, Fauquier, Madison, Orange and Rappahannock counties, but this year was the first time the workshop has been held in Rappahannock.

The aim of the Living Tbwns program is to help neighboring jurisdictions better cooperate and share ideas about how to preserve the character, environment and economy of the region.

A diverse group of speakers - from government officials to entrepreneurs to nonprofit directors - participated in panels on area identity, community development and planning. Perhaps the clearest message that came from the meeting was that high-speed Internet will be the key to future economic success in rural areas.

Chris Thompson, a policy analyst for the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development, said that some 80 percent of new jobs are generated by small businesses. Those start-ups are usually located in homes and rely on high-speed Internet connections.

Localities do not have to rely on large businesses for economic development, he said. But they need access to the Web to be a viable business communities.

Keynote speaker and Washington Post reporter Joel Garreau said the .Internet is having more of an effect than airplanes or automobiles on _ urbanity. The Web allows people to live for away from traditional job centers and work from home as long as a network connection is available.

Those employees, no longer tethered to the big city, are leaving urban jungles in search of “villages and vistas,*

Garreau said. Apy ^ are bring