George,

A year and a half ago local business leaders launched a discussion titled “Choosing our Future: Aspen or Austin”, asking “Will Charlottesville become a high-priced place for only the rich to live, or can it attract enough high-tech jobs here to provide employment to keep a middle class?” The question was initiated by the Virginia Piedmont Technology Council, sponsored by one of the local developers’ favorite law firms, LeClair Ryan. (Charlottesville Podcasting Network has a podcast of the January 23, 2007, session; also read Brian Wheeler’s summary of the event, and interesting blog comments.

Offering only Aspen or Austin as models provides a false choice, of course, and fails to ask whether either city is truly sustainable or desirable. Those posing the question want us to believe that if we don’t open up our local economy to expand like Austin, with few effective constraints on commercial development or population growth, we will create an elitist community, like Aspen, with no affordable housing and limited job opportunities for less privileged residents. By framing the question with these two cities as the only choices, only a socially heartless environmental wacko would opt for the Aspen model; we should all grow like Austin. Moreover, a premise of the question is that bringing new high-tech jobs here will “keep a middle class” – as if our unemployed would qualify for the new high-tech jobs (new companies to our communities bring new employees rather than tapping local folks).

For some reason this flawed question, with the same biased framing, will be rehashed at this Saturday morning’s Democratic Breakfast. I regret that I’ll be unable to attend, but I hope someone else will point out the presumptions in the way the question is asked, and observe that there are certainly other approaches to building an equitable and sustainable community. The Albemarle/Charlottesville area should follow neither Aspen nor Austin, but, learning from both, should seek our own path.

Jack Marshall (Electronic mail, June 17, 2008)