The mountains are full of population-5,000ish towns that offer the promise of, well, genuine small-town charm and welcome.
Photo Above: The Masonic Amphitheatre was built in partnership with Virginia Tech students.
©Chuck Almarez.
If there’s one truth about this pandemic, it’s that all of our lives have been turned upside down. From work to childcare…shopping to socializing…to how we spend our time and what we think about: All of it is up for grabs.
Deconstruction of normality is never comfortable. But when things fall apart, new ways can arise from the rubble.
So here’s one to consider. Now may be the time to move to a small town in our mountains.
No, not the suburbs. (Read Alexandra Petri’s scary-wonderful July Washington Post op-ed, “You try to wake up. But you are living the Suburban Lifestyle Dream” for a “Mad Men” take on that.)
A small town. Really. Say, 5,000 people…or fewer.
I take no credit for this suggestion. Urban exodus has been written about extensively over the past months. An April Harris Poll found that 39 % of urban dwellers, faced with the COVID-19 crisis, were considering leaving cities. With the pandemic-induced surge of working from home—telecommuting—the need to be in or close to a city has fallen substantially. Our tolerance for crowds has, too.
But most of these articles end the same way: It won’t last. Urban dwellers are urban dwellers—they’ll come back. “America had raised a generation of young people who, on average, valued the things urbanity had to offer….Dining out, craft cocktails, live music, dating without settling down into married life is what millennials seek in cities,” Amanda Mull wrote in her June 15th Atlantic article, “The High Cost of Panic-Moving.”
Panic moving? Not necessary. Now is the time to go exploring and realize that the urban-rural divide isn’t drawn in stark black and white—that living in a small town doesn’t doom you to a Sinclair Lewis “Main Street” existence devoid of coffee shops, art, theaters and good restaurants.
I’m here to tell you that our small mountains towns may offer things that, during this pandemic and in its wake, are sustaining, grounding and healthy. Things that have always been the hallmark of small towns, and nowhere more than in the mountains: a strong sense of community and resulting support during hard times; intergenerational friendships; low cost of living; numerous volunteer opportunities; small classes in small schools; outdoor recreation in your backyard; uncrowded restaurants where the owners greet you and the servers know your favorites.
A half hour west of my small western Virginia town of Clifton Forge is the historic Greenbrier Resort, with its national golf and tennis tournaments; a half-hour north is the equally elegant Homestead Resort. A hundred and fifty years ago, people flocked from cities to take The Cure in the mineral springs and baths at the Homestead and Greenbrier.
©Chuck Almarez
Maybe it’s time for city dwellers to take The Cure all over again. To come to a place where remote work is easily doable, where unpeopled mountain trails and rivers offer limitless outdoor space and time. Where your neighbor may work for the railroad or be a retired physician, work at the ABC store or be an award-winning photographer. Diversity in a small mountain town is a given—you can’t not know people you see and work with most every day.
Maybe—just maybe—a small town can be a place to learn how the large world works.
This may be the time to ask ourselves a few questions.
Do we really want what we say we want—a return to normal?
Or is this the time to seek something that isn’t our past, but could be our re-imagined future?
Are we brave enough to find new ways of living, new patterns of being, new places for ourselves?
Are we brave enough to live in a place where your neighbors may not be like you, but need to be listened to and respected? Because I guarantee you—you’ll see them at the Kroger store often.
Writing in BELT magazine, Alina Stine puts it like this: “When you look for a model on how to remake the world after the pandemic, [m]ake it a place where strangers care for strangers without expecting anything in return. Make it a place where the community is only as strong as its weakest member, and where help is given, as much and as often as it can be.”
Because in a small town, it’s a given that people work together to build their future—and here in the mountains, they know you even when you’re wearing a mask.
This is the Voice of Experience Speaking…
Seven years ago, when I retired, I moved from the City of Roanoke to Clifton Forge, population 3,500, in Virginia’s Alleghany Highlands. Half of our county’s land is national forest, and the mountains reach around our towns like geographic hugs. It’s home to Douthat State Park, one of Virginia’s premier mountain biking, hiking and camping destinations. Our longstanding arts and crafts center has hosted national exhibits, and the School of the Arts offers painting, blacksmithing, music, sculpture, stained glass, pottery and woodcarving classes. You can eat in a Cheers-like family tavern or a French café owned by a former White House pastry chef. A beautifully restored historic theatre presents concerts, acting workshops and free movies, building community in the Alleghany Highlands, home to 20,000 diverse and hard-working people.
We have a hospital. A school system that boasts both a national champion welder and, this year, a valedictorian heading to Yale. A community college. Breweries, a nearby cidery, distillery and winery. A 14.4-mile rails-to-trails walking and biking path paralleling the scenic Jackson River, where recently, tennis great Venus Williams came to go tubing.
The Alleghany Highlands is a place served by Amtrak, heading west to Chicago and northeast to Washington, New York, and Boston three days a week. With easy access to interstates 64, 77, and 81, leading to all major East Coast cities. It’s an hour from two airports. So if you’re thinking of remote work, the office isn’t so far away.
And—fact—Alleghany County has the best fiberoptic broadband in rural Virginia. More than 80 percent of the Highlands has fast and reliable internet service, and that number’s going up monthly.
Having traveled Blue Ridge towns for years, I can tell you that our region is full of places like mine.
Now’s the time to open your eyes and your inquiring mind…and go explore them.
The story above appears in our November / December 2020 issue.
