The Smyth County Virginia Chamber of Commerce's

The Rural System Initiative

Sustained rural resources; sustained profits

This is a draft document and may not be cited. This is not a solicitation for investment and strictly exploratory. The concept and corporation is under development

Barbara DeBord Executive Director P.O. Box 924 214 West Main Street Marion, Virginia 24354

Robert H. Giles, Jr., Ph.D. Professor Emeritus formerly of the College of Natural Resources Virginia Tech 504 Rose Avenue Blacksburg, Virginia 24060

April, 2006

The Rural System Initiative

In Smyth County we have a problem to solve together for now and the future. You know the local conditions very well. The problem has many sides or facets like those of a diamond:

• Unemployment
• Loss of area youth
• Community stability
• Unstable tax base
• Uncertain energy supplies and high costs
• Environmental limits
• Health and nutrition

These are all related in Smyth County but not unique throughout the Commonwealth or the nation. Today, together, we have to build tomorrow. It has to be solid, innovative, and well planned for matching our strengths. We, as the people of the county and players in the region, must seize an opportunity while preserving the best of our past for future generations. We must take initiative, take an initiative called Rural System.

Things we know about the county.

The Rural System has been difficult to describe in the past. We must tell much more about what it does that what it is. It is new so there is little with which to compare it. First we'll list what it does, then tell what it is.

1. Like a good stock portfolio, it provides diversity
2. It emphasizes and adds value to the natural resources here
3. It provides employment, growing to an estimated 300 after 7 years
4. Affiliating with willing existing enterprises, it increases their markets
5. Using a modern "systems approach," it achieves new economies
6. Intensively using the Internet for reducing travel, communicating, and expanding markets provides abundant opportunities, some undreamed
7. Computer simulation and optimization allow us to move past being average, uneconomical about half of the time
8. Using a new data base for lands and waters of the county allows land owners, especially absentee owners, to achieve new productivity and conservation
9. Incentives throughout allow every citizen opportunities for abundant, diverse benefits
10. Working from a single office is no longer required, thus saving energy and offering abundant part time employment
11. It uses the stores of research results already paid for by tax payers
12. Starting in the county, the system expands throughout western Virginia, then internationally
13. It implements a new dynamic planning system, The Trevey (pronounced tree-vee)
14. Aware of the limitations of tourism and ecotourism, it promotes ranging a new composite of outdoor related activities and recreation with cultural resource links
15. It uses and provides opportunities for cost-effective education, primarily called "distance learning" but working for high significant desired behavioral change per dollar
16. It has a single group, Q Works, that economizes major common operations for its entire set of small enterprises
17. It provides a Land Force, people with special equipment providing rural land services under contract. Employing the best practices, profits are shared with land owners and the land is improved for sustained profitability

People consistently tell us that Rural System is "hard to get your mind around it." You will find it easy as we tell you what it is in a nutshell, then tell a few stories, then tell you how it can be a for-profit solution to the local many-sided problem.

First, in a nutshell -

The Chamber and its colleagues should start a for-profit corporation called Rural System. It unifies about 70 small rural- and natural-resource-related businesses. It manages land and water, and provides services, products, and other benefits. It offers new employment and a community tax base. It's a system using computers and the Internet in the business end of the work, but with their big payoffs being in planning, decision-making, and in gaining efficiencies from using our computer maps and satellite data. It provides comprehensive services for using and developing land for sustained annual profits for the long run. We're planning it for a worldwide franchise to meet growing environmental and human needs.

A one page capsule is available.

1The first story started with Bob watching football on the TV. As a professor of wildlife management and ecology he suddenly saw that, by analogy, he had been describing and working with the football all of his life and had not realized he could have been working with the total football enterprise…uniforms, stadium, publications, travel, etc…. the whole system. He had been interested in describing and modeling deer and grouse and raccoon populations but the real system

TEAM Together Everyone Achieves More

to be managed was the greater one, that of forests, fields, and streams; laws and enforcement; human attitudes and budgets. The realization was that the actual football in the center of the field was essential…but almost irrelevant ... within the enormously large, profitable system. There is a diverse large corporation ready to be built around similar essential elements of the rural countryside.

2The second story is about Bob's work after he got the Powell River project started years ago with funding by Penn Virginia Resources Corporation of Duffield. They wanted to know what to do with their land after the coal was gone. He studied the optimum farm for the strip-mined benches but finally realized conditions were too limiting, the scale was wrong. He studied single enterprises such as raising cattle and found that only very large herds could be profitable. We needed for the newly available and restored lands a "cattle system" not a " few steers" with marketing, fencing, veterinary, pasture analyses, protein buying, and security elements to be profitable…and that system could be very profitable. The need was to shift the scale of recommendation from unprofitable cows to a profitable cattle system.

3The third story is about one part of modern forestry. Well-done forestry can improve the profits on almost any wooded tract in western Virginia by 20%. If the wood comes from a certified-as-sustainable tract, the gain is likely to be an additional 10%. If wooded tracts are entered into the planned Rural System Tracts, then the profits likely from tracts will double. When Bob first described the concept to a logger he said, "Oh all you are doing is providing annual income to the forest land owner." He was right. Instead of planting trees and waiting 60 years for a harvest, Rural System tracts would yield annual income from the collective activities of 70 enterprises on all tracts. If invested, the amount would equal or exceed the worth of the harvested trees…and the forest would be regenerated and moving into the future. In addition, it would be moving faster because the productivity of the sites would be improved by the expertise and investments of The Forest Group, one of the enterprises of Rural System. Increasing or maintaining productivity is a cost of normal business…an alternative way of discussing the new "conservation."

It's a company that doesn't cost the county any more tax funds but contributes to the tax base. It provides employment, assists in stabilizing schools, improves the productivity of the land for the future (using a 150-year planning horizon), makes past investments in research pay off, and uses the National Forests and other public lands (with permission) thus gaining tax-related benefits now few from such lands.

How The Initiative Can be a Solution

The Initiative is that of creating a diverse corporation with a headquarters in the county. A research foundation will develop later. With the same arguments as for diverse stock portfolios and diverse ecosystems, the enterprise is diverse with about 70 small businesses. There is a central administrative unit called Q Works. It provides common services for all enterprises but especially database, optimization, dynamic planning, education, and computer support functions making it unlike the typical incubator. (This might link efficiently with existing local resources.) About half of the enterprises work on Rural System Tracts, private lands under contract for superior comprehensive total system management … profitability for the long run, based on millions of dollars of research results and site-specific knowledge. We work on 10-yard x 10-yard land squares or cells throughout the county, and then expand throughout the region and elsewhere. The other half of the enterprises works out of offices or homes, most with strong computer activity. The fifth component is the Land Force. This is a major employer that works in the outdoors, manages the land, provides security, and assists in all activities of Rural System. It achieves economies through safety, education, computer planning, GPS use, GIS maps, and rentals and shared use of equipment that is designed and used right for the conditions on the varied tracts. Increasingly absentee owners, trust land owners, and ecotourism interests need the services of the Land Force.

In summary, the solutions are in the parts of Rural System:

1. Q Works
2. The Groups (with links to affiliates)
3. Rural System Tracts
4. The Land Force
5. The Studies and Education Foundation

The Chamber's Motive As seen Clearly from its web site , the Smyth County Virginia Chamber of Commerce has the objective of enhancing the economic base and quality of life of the community. That is consistent with the objectives of Rural System. In addition to achieving diversity of enterprises and members, the Chamber can gain financial support from sponsoring Rural System. A part of the mutually beneficial financial incentives will be in the mutual support of Rural System and the Chamber. Rural System has designed within it The Base which can be taken over by or included with Chamber functions. Chamber members can help guide and direct System activities to make then compatible with the social and political realities of the county advancing to the future.

Ranging

Smyth County can become the starting place of ranging. Ranging is a concept that is needed to replace tourism or ecotourism. It's a new form of soundly-based, diverse, regional tourism, ecotourism, and sightseeing, combined with most forms of extensive outdoor recreation (hunting, fishing, archery, boating, hiking, camping, etc.), and outdoor projects, events, memberships, shows, contests, and games. It needs to be strongly affiliated with cultural resources for historical and future reasons but also for the practical reasons of responding to diverse family interests, trip orientations, and even for diversifying stops on single trips.

Tourism, as now promoted, tends to be narrow in scope, seasonal, costly, provides few financial gains for the county, often produces dissatisfactions, produces few desired jobs, and trespassing and disrespectful visitors bother local people. Clearly, tourism produces benefits in some areas, few in others.

Ranging is a complex activity for economic development for the county and its region. It capitalizes on superior land management in and around a county or named region, and shows how a new conservation and education base for a diverse private corporation can improve economic conditions for businesses and citizens. It provides novel dimensions of culture, lifestyle, and quality of life for residents as well as visitors.

The key relationship of ranging to other elements of Rural System is that requires a superior environment. For that environment to exist and be sustained, there must be modern sophisticated management. Rural System can supply such management. Ranging needs an enterprise like Rural System.

(Full scale uses… with permission… of local, state, and federal forests, parks, and recreation lands is intended. Serving them under contract will be sought. The more stable their funding and policies, the greater will be their contributions to the problems of the town and counties of the region.)

Frequently Asked Questions

The above comments have often produced intense questions before we could finish the description of Rural System. Here are a few and I shall be happy to answer others (Please email questions to bdebord@smythchamber.org or RHGiles@RuralSystem.com).

1. How can you compete on private land with the vast federal acreage nearby? We're users, getting some of the lost tax base back, but we provide on private land intensive management, clear objectives, diverse activities, employment, and security. That's enough. We use the government-owned lands for gaining profit for the enterprise.
2. Why did Bob wait until retirement to present this concept? He described parts of it in classes for students. He worked on parts for a TVA system and during consulting and when chairman of the Blacksburg Planning Commission. It matured in the late 1990's and he ahs been drafting and refining it ever since he retired (1998) with advice from small business development agencies and others. Now there are real needs in Smyth County, high energy costs, layoffs in nearby communities, fluctuating land, energy and food prices and changes afoot in farm subsidies. The population of elderly people increases. The time is right to seize an opportunity. Bob is eager to share elements of the Rural System concept and to contribute to it.
3. Why 70 or 80 enterprises or groups? We welcome others, welcome affiliating with businesses that now exist, and will leave failures as rapidly as possible. The numbers of involved enterprises can harvest the richness and imagination of the people of the county and region that have never been expressed or suppressed because there was no market or the scale was too small.
4. Why not start small? Most of the proposed enterprises have started small and failed. The Smyth problems are a set of too-small scale, inadequate markets, seasonal issues, and lack of diversity. Small businesses fail; small towns fail; small farms fail. Cooperation and unification around a common objective - sustained long-term bounded profit can give us the proper scale.
5. What's special? What will we have that no one else has? You'll have a unique new system not available anywhere. You'll have a lasting system with ever-improving feedback. You'll have a new composite of broadband technology, new computer power, vast past research, Internet marketing and communication (a new e-catalog), and unique groups all working together for their mutual benefits as well as those for the people of Smyth. People will come to the area to see the effects and learn about Rural System and the Initiative.
6. What does the individual landowner give up? Nothing. No one has to join. Those that do so and become Rural System Tracts may specify limits for uses and activities on their property. Those that join the Rural System Tracts gain extra land value, increased land productivity, beauty, profits, preservation of select parts, protected viewscapes, and protection when needed from corporate, state, and federal taking of their land. Management of trust or conservation easement lands gives such land new value to the region, not alleged withdrawals. If allow, during certain periods, supervised and authorized visitors may use your land and water non-destructively. Such use is one way that we "make money."
7. How is this related to the New River Land Trust and conservation easements? We support "Land Care" principles and think there is a hand-in-glove fit. We think that Trust lands should be evaluated and inspected and managed over time for the owners' purposes. Management is part of protection and we think that government as well as land owners will be pleased that their lands are beautiful, well maintained, select sites preserved, and all allowed to be profitable under superior management.
8. Why is this to be a "for profit" enterprise? Why not "non-profit" since its objectives are clearly conservation, community development, and improving the environment? Smyth County needs a private, non-govermental group with a clear objective and with personal incentives for creativity, hard work, shared gains, and environmental and economic stability. It needs to avoid some unstable laws, regulations, regulations and policies and absence of clear, measurable objectives and accountability. The scale of Rural System now seems to require temporary government involvement just to get started. Afterwards it works for its money in a continually improving environment.
9. What are the key elements or special ways of doing business? We can only list them here but they are discussed in www.RuralSystem.com and I shall describe them later. They are:
   1. a systems approach
   2. synergism and team work
   3. incentive-driven
   4. emphasis on producing benefits
   5. a clear, bounded, long-term profit motive
   6. value-added tactics
   7. shifted economies of scale
   8. dynamic planning
   9. maximum use of past research findings
   10. modern energy budgeting
   11. ecological and economic modeling
   12. system simulation and optimization
   13. intensive use of GPS and geographic information systems
   14. year-around activity
   15. low capital investment needs
   16. safety and risk reduction
   17. an extended planning horizon
   18. futuristic models.

Special potential recreational dimensions A vast National Forest acreage, largely unexplored and seasonally used Rich flora and fauna and potentials for the new sport of Bird Golf Proximity of the National Recreational Area Proximity to the New River and changing interests there Wilderness quality areas for exploration and specialized use National Forest with access for Nature Folks, Appalachian Trail hikers and new Trail related developments State park with a major group facility Potentials for a Guides enterprise and related Groups

Gaining Both Rural System and Ranging

There are many pathways to the same desirable end point… to the objective… to create a private profitable corporation that provides employment and reduces emigration and creates community stability, well being, and quality of life through gaining improved restoration, select preservation, and management of natural resources of the region…then expands. We hope that people within the communities will work to find a clear, swift, economically viable means to implement Rural System.

Here's one clear path. (We invite your thoughtful suggestions for others or modifications.)

A Rural System Fund, a foundation is created in a local bank(s). This is a non-profit foundation created to create Rural System. A board of directors is formed. Smyth (and perhaps adjacent or nearby counties) guarantees $500,000; the State guarantees $1 million; and the federal government provides $1 million; foundation additions are sought. A key point … after 7 years, most of these funds are repaid by the working conglomerate and then the foundation is disbanded. These are not grant funds, only a special loan pool. Citizens and corporations are invited to participate in tax-deductible ways. The direct financial gains for investors from such investment seem to be 3-4% after 7 years. The rate of return is initially low but the investment expands the great secondary good from the corporate conglomerate. Employment opportunities are estimated to be about 200 people at that time.

Continuing the suggestion, the Rural System Fund offers a line of credit. Staff then uses funds carefully to develop Rural System as fast and efficiently as possible. Acquiring key managers, educating employees, gaining contracts for Rural System Tracts and working with local landowners will take much time. Contacting local businesses to gain their support and participation will be an on-going activity. Some enterprises will "takeoff" immediately. Others such as Q Works may not be functional for a year. Major development is needed for Q Works for it to provide efficiencies among the developing groups.

The economics of each developed group cannot be evaluated well without knowledge of the other groups. Each depends in part on the existence and efficiency of related groups. Rural System is a business ecosystem with designed relations for stability. Each group benefits from the presence of at least one other group. Most of it must start at the same time. An additive strategy will not work. Starting with many low-development-cost enterprises has been suggested. The start of each will largely depend upon employing a team of dynamic managers who will build the system.

A frequently asked question is, "How much does it cost?" The best answer is "nothing," because it will be profitable and pay off in profits and benefits.

That answer is usually not satisfying.

1One answer is that for the unemployed it costs nothing but time and reinvesting personally in becoming a superior creative team player and employee. It may mean taking classes, emailing, using distance learning. It may mean allowing their land to become demonstration Rural System Tracts, placing their nearby lands under contract for the modern sophisticated natural resource management offered. Depending on land characteristics and past use, it may mean making profits soon.

2Another answer is that is costs Smyth and willing adjacent county participants a total of $500 thousand in a bank account for a special kind of loan, a line of credit, to the forming Rural System. It really costs nothing but the foregone interest because the funds will be used as quickly as possible to get started and then paid back by the conglomerate.

3One answer is that it costs the state and nation about $2 million dollars. These are from a tax pool, but they are not citizen costs of improving their rural environment on which we all depend. They are not risky grants, merely a short-term loan, a special type of bond for creating a smoothly functioning system to help maintain the essential food, water, and amenities of the rural environment that is so rapidly being left by people for city life.

4Work will staunch the flow of environmental development funds out of the state where overhead is high and gains inconspicuous. Creative uses of private donations will be offered. New local libraries, corporate grounds development, and urban areas will bloom. Smyth County may become a notable international rural environmental system capital, gaining special identity.

The bottom line … money talks. Improved natural resource management we now believe can be seen to be likely only within managed, private, socially-responsible capitalism. Rural System provides many benefits to citizens, most well beyond those of now-declining agencies. After 7 years of development, it will achieve advancing, improving rural conditions…for at least the 150-year planning horizon, all at a modest or better bounded-profits for members, investors, and citizens of the region.

When a person buys an item for one dollar and sells it for 20 dollars, do the cost or the gains become more important? The magnitude of the difference in gaining Rural System exceeds this ratio. No longer only extractive or exploitative, Rural System seeks to gain modern sophisticated rural resource enhancement and management for the people of the region for the long run, then to expand that knowledge and influence worldwide. No longer a joke: "We ain't farmin' half as good as we know how." Rural System changes that.

The following is offered as a potential or assumed budget, based on a gradual start within 2 years, early development of Q Works and a dynamic planning system, continued development, and profit-driven incentives for both staff as well as affiliating enterprises within Marion, Saltville, Chilhowie and the rest of Smyth County.

A Potential Start-up Unit

The Sectors of Rural System 1. Q Works (also called System Central in the web site) 2. Forestry Topics 3. Wildlife / Nature 4. Agricultural Topics 5. Sports and Recreation 6. Products and Services The Land Force (leadership, staff, and equipment) The Rural System Tracts The Rural System Studies and Education Foundation

Q Works

Forestry Topics

Wildlife /Nature

Agriculture and Rangeland Topics

Sports and Recreation

Products and Services

Total 33

With an average annual startup cost of $70,000 each, the total is $2, 310,000. Addition costs are for equipping and staffing The Land Force involved in many of the above Groups. Investors will be invited. Estimated profits are 3% by year 7. Employment is expected to be about 300 after year 7. Over 200,000 acres are expected to be planned and under intensive watershed management by year 7.The total list of Groups proposed to be within Rural System follows.

You may link to the total list of proposed Groups.

Rural System Tracts

1. Lands of Private Land Owners and Corporations
2. National Forest Land with permission
3. Lands of the Commonwealth and Military Areas with permission
4. County, city and select corporate lands
5. International Land Units

The Land Force

The Rural System Studies and Education Foundation (To be developed later after 7 years development for research education, and health system relations)

On the following pages we provide a brief sketch of the financial potentials provided owners of farms (based on nearby Blacksburg assumptions). The emphasis within Rural System is first on absentee land owner units, Trust lands, and large tracts. Initially, tracts must be greater than 50 acres but that limit will change rapidly.

What May Rural System Offer the Small Farm Owner?

Systems work starts with objectives and for years we have studied those goals and objectives of people in rural areas. Even summarizing them results in a long list. We can discuss them later for on-site detailed analyses.

In Rural System we concentrate on financial stability, believing that if bounded sustained profits are achieved for many years, most of the other important not-easily quantified objectives can be achieved. Adequate income, one objective, may be a condition for being satisfied by the others. (We do know of special needs and can create custom systems.)

In Table 1 we list the gross likely profit from local land use in the classes of average ownership. We show an example for an hypothetical 65-acre diverse farm area with land, house, and buildings valued at $3000 per acre, thus total value of $195,000. The gross 30-year mortgage at 6% is $33,951 per year.

Notable:

• $ $33,951 annually is needed to pay off such a mortgage
• $ $25,440 is the estimated annual yield from this hypothetical farm (see the table below; thus a tendency to desire to move or to seek bankruptcy)

Rural System, within 5 years as a diverse conglomerate can offer conservatively to owners with their land under contract as a Rural System Tract (with examples)

1. greater than 1% land value increase (due to information package, visual quality, reduced risks, reduced problem areas, and public relations as a Smartwood "Sustainable Forest", "green" and "organic" (e.g., $ 1950))
2. greater than 5% increase in forest productivity (e.g., $ 750)
3. greater than 2% increase in crop and livestock production using computer aids (e.g., $100)
4. Reduced storage, garage and working area cost (e.g., $500)
5. Dogwood Inns development and rental potentials
6. Enhanced land and environmental quality and reduced risks or probable costs (e.g., water pollution, ground water quantity and quality, other litigation) (not included but > $2000)
7. Payment of real estate tax on the property (e.g., $1170)
8. Achievement of 5-10 other importance-weighted objectives
9. Improved local employment
10. Improved local tax base and cultural conditions
11. Local pride
12. Direct proportional payments from all profits within the Rural System from ancillary activities, memberships, and services, the proportion based on each landowner's quality-weighted acreage under contract (est. $2000).

The total estimated annual financial addition for an hypothetical average 65-acre Rural System tract is $6470. Grossly Rural System brings the annual income to

• $31,910 to approximately match (within 6%) the required mortgage of
• $33,951

Given estimated productivity of $25,440, the total is $31,910 and this compares with the estimated mortgage ($195,000; 30 years; 6%) of $33,951. All of the production estimates are "average"; all of the gain estimates are conservative. Rural System approximately brings a slightly sub-marginal farm and house into a profitable state. The Rural System affiliation brings additional landowner income as a member of a diverse, growing conglomerate with profits expanding with additional enterprises, incentives, franchises, e-commerce, and enhanced land productivity grounded in computer data with maps and models.

Assumptions needed are many and difficulties with them seem to compound. Costs are not included in the annual averages, but are assumed to be at least the same as priced yields for a break-even operation. In this example we have a marginal operation … and evidence abounds that farmers are leaving farms at unbelievable rates, and urban expansion in number of people and use of rural land for residential/commercial areas is great.

Profit from owning land increases with inflation, diverse structural development, and speculation, rarely with crop, forest, and livestock production. Producing food and fiber remains important; fossil energy available is a new uncertainty; high land value for rural housing requires good water and natural scenery; extending urban services to dispersed rural residences and corporate offices is costly; rural employment and village stability is essential by many criteria.

Rural System - Capsule Rural System is a proposed corporation, a conglomerate of about 70 small natural resource related enterprises. Some of the enterprises, subsystems, are new and some are very old. It is a system doing modern, sophisticated, computer-aided management of the lands and waters of an eastern US region in order to sustain long-term profits and quality of life for citizens. It responds to rapidly changing regional and national demographics. The nation's population is only 17% rural. Only 6.5% of those people are engaged in farming. People move to the urban core for work and many advantages but then many Americans prefer to live in smaller places that are near urban area, not in them. When no metropolitan center is nearby, counties and smaller cities are better able to retain population and attract new residents compared with more rural counties. People of rural counties and their small towns suffer from loss of employment and tax base, demands for new services, conflicts with residential land uses, and escalating land prices all making conventional farming untenable. Settlers as well as residents find their scenic quality and rural amenities declining. Rural System responds to many of these difficulties. Concentrating on its objectives of gaining superior resource management, it includes outdoor recreation, specialized tourism and rural development, forest and wildlife management, and it works on restoring and enhancing production from the rural land resource. The umbrella entity is a philanthropic for-profit corporation with not-for-profit foundation spending a proportion of its gains on improving regional resources. It may use national and state lands and waters but, most importantly, it provides opportunities for the owners of private lands and waters (often for absentee owners and those within forestry cooperatives) to experience profits related to superior rural land management. While managing the assets of such lands, Rural System provides related services and products from the unified business units. Half of these units work from the private managed lands that are under contract. A central unit provides incubator-like services and allows the corporation to harvest public research investments, to achieve economies of scale and division of labor, to gain synergism, and to stabilize employment. The enterprise leads the region in computer-aided, year-around, and private land management. It shares projects and funds with citizens and investors. It links citizens as well as visitors to the land and its long-term potentials for profits. It provides an alternative town and regional identity, one of a place for modern regional rural resource development and management. It links buyers and users with producers of certified forest products and wildland resource opportunities from well-managed rural land and water resources. Successes are achieved via diligent work with personal incentives, diverse enterprises and products, and computer optimization of a total system. It overcomes the old failures of natural resource management, i.e., diseconomies of small-scale operations, mixed objectives, lack of diversity, seasonal work, lack of annual income, and failure to add value to products and efforts. It capitalizes on innovative uses of past research, results optimization, the Internet, global positioning satellites, and computer mapping throughout the region. The system is described at www.RuralSystem.com. The vision for the enterprise is that its success in helping improve the social, economic, and environmental well being of the region can allow the enterprise to become effective and expand. Thus, similar influences can be transferred, years later, throughout southern and western Virginia and eventually internationally. The work will be recognized as the product of a special paradigm in rural resource and wildland management. As such, Rural System will become a profitable conglomerate operating well past this century, given its 150-year planning horizon sliding forward annually.

Here are some things we know about the county There have been notably different periods; a new one is coming. A good summary There are 452 square miles or about 290,000 acres There are about 33,000 people - stable or decreasing 10,000 out of 30,000 over 55 years old. 3800 households have a person over age 65 There are only about 25,000 potential voters. There are 3 major towns - Marion, Saltville, and Chilhowie and several others with several hundred inhabitants each We can see the distribution of the people within the county ... and it is very restricted The density of people per square mile of 73.2 is meaningless because of the great area of public land ownership and farmland. The Poverty Rate (2000) is 16.8% compared to the state rate of 9.6% Population Aged 16+ in Labor Force (2000) 58.4% compared to the state which is 66.8% Population Aged 25+ without a High School Diploma (2000) 32.5% compared to the state percentage: 18.5% The northern part of the County is under one National Forest manager (the New River Valley Ranger District); the southern part, The Mount Rogers Natinal Recreation Area, is under another manager, and administrative changes are abundant. 2,883 people of the county are said to be directly employed in the forest industry and the total said to be involved is 4,825 people. State Forestry Brian Ledford, Forester Virginia Department of Forestry 1225 Pine Street Abingdon, Virginia 24212 Phone: 276 676-5660 The annual timber sale value is about $324,539, one third that of Grayson Co. and 87th in the state. Somehow that sales amount is said to convert to direct output of the forest industry of $272,142,401 in the county with total economic impact of $391,094,569. Events and Attractions - see marketing by General Francis Marion Hotel. Growing season averages 180 days in county’s southwest to 140 days in northwest and varies with elevation. Average annual snowfall: 20 inches/50.8 centimeters. Normal yearly precipitation 41.2 inches /104.6cm. Marion: Latitude 36°50'N; Longitude 81°30'W County Statistics Smyth County is amongVirginia's aCorridor counties (Stretching from the City of Bristol to the City of Galax along Interstates 81 and 77, the aCorridor includes the two cities and Washington, Smyth, Wythe, Grayson, Carroll and Bland counties.) Tom Elliott is the Executive Director of Virginia's aCorridor (April, 2006).

Perhaps you will share ideas with me about some of the topic(s) above .

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Rural System
Glossary
Robert H. Giles, Jr.
April 10, 2006