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Economic
slowdown hits
Rappahannock
By Nicholas M. Hobbock
Special to the Rappahannock Naw»a
Rappahannock Cmu^ has boon, largely an oasis ha a nation amI a state that have been shaken for two years by a severe housing crisis, an explosion of energy costs, rising food prices, a shaken financial system m*<1 a massive drop in state and local tax revenues.
As close as the home foreclosures in Culpeper or empty office buildings in Tysons Corner Northern Virginia has seen the home expansion gallop of 2003 and 2004 evaporate into a sharp (hop in many home values, job layoffs wrenching changes in the real estate mu£ hauMng businesses.
la & sense, Rappahannock was shieidad by the very nature of the county It has a small population^ 7,200 rite, sens, no strip malls, no housing developments mud a small government apparatus, housed largely in buildings that were built mostly in the 19th century Its biggest business is agriculture, says Robert Anderson* chairman of the Board of Supervisors. And food prices hare been on the rise. Many of the county’s residents are retired on comfortable incomes or earn their living in Washington ***** Northern Virginia.
Until this summer, if there were troubles* the sett green forests and rolling fields of Rappahannock have hidden them from view Now as the financial slowdown heads toward its third year; Rappahannock County is beginning to show signs that other jurisdictions have
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