Transcript

In our Partnership for a Livable Roanoke Valley, we really have multiple catalysts, and I think one of the big drivers of that is a realization that our region in order to sustain itself has to look at doing things somewhat differently. And as most small urban and rural areas, we've lost population and we've got an aging population and we've lost industry and employment. And so, we really have to examine how we want to move forward and what kind of investments we want to make, especially from an infrastructure standpoint, and transportation being a key one, but also how we invest to encourage economic development, how we invest to encourage recreation and amenities that we think could be important to drawing economic development to our region as well as tourism and retirees to choose the Roanoke Valley as a place that they would like to retire to.