Saturday, February 17, 2007
The 'cool' factor found in Mill Mountain's natural beauty
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Betty Field
Field lives in Roanoke.
The "cool" professionals of "Valley Forward" (Feb. 4 news article, "Make Roanoke cool, group says") want to place a convention center, restaurant and the requisite parking expansions on Mill Mountain. They call this enormous commercial development "making careful enhancements to Mill Mountain Park."
The word "enhancement" always raises a red flag. It is frequently used by those wishing to take land that belongs to others and use it for their own purposes.
"Enhance" means "to alter." Applied to Mill Mountain, "enhance" means "to develop with commercial buildings."
But from the perspective of those who value the mountain as Roanoke's last significant natural area, placing commercial buildings in Mill Mountain Park would create less an enhancement than an incarceration. That word means "to confine, enclose and constrict" the natural world of Mill Mountain.
This plan also smacks of a business deal, and Mill Mountain Park is not for sale. Of the many who walk, bike or visit the mountain regularly to escape the commercial sprawl below, not one has noticed any real estate signs on this public land.
In 1997, 2,381 Roanokers and visitors to Mill Mountain petitioned Roanoke City Council to leave the place natural.
I have interviewed more than 100 mountaintop visitors with out-of-state tags. Many of these tourists have expressed envious amazement that Roanoke has managed to keep a whole mountain uncommercialized and green. This feat makes Roanoke a rare, forward-thinking place in a nation of sprawling cities and suburbs.
Must we lose that priceless asset by bringing the city to the top of our mountain and using even this last green space for economic gain?
It is a gift to be simple. People today are looking for a last refuge of simplicity in nature. Because Mill Mountain provides such a setting, it already is a destination for ecotourism. People want to get away from the glitz of cities and their busy, hectic lives.
The "cool" group Valley Forward has asked the city business community how they can draw their cool brothers and sisters to the Roanoke Valley area.
But they have not understood the values of people already living here, nor of Mill Mountain as a rare, welcome draw to sprawl-weary tourists who see nothing but development everywhere else.
Thousands of hikers, bikers and "urban refugees" come to the mountain to flee the city's smog, noise and traffic below. They come for quiet reflection, bird watching or family time in nature.
There's no entrance fee or expensive dining to purchase, so people of all incomes can enjoy this public park free of charge.
The mountain attracts people who see recreation as a time to re-create their lives -- away from the busyness of work, the traffic, stress, buildings, computers, TVs and noise of their lives below. They can find a value in nature itself, without having to somehow consume it.
These open-space areas are places to breathe the fresh air, to find solitude, to see and smell and feel the gift of the forest and its birds, to view the surrounding mountains, to read a book under the oak trees, to wander in the quiet beauty of the wildflower garden.
Whether we know it or not, the mountain seeps into our very being and gives us grace and energy to carry on in our daily lives. It is a place in the midst of our fast-paced time, where we can see that nature moves incredibly slowly.
Nature is not perfect and reminds us that we are not perfect. It is as if the mountain becomes a mirror of our interior lives.
In the city, we can find "perfect" yards with chemicals that run into the Roanoke River. These "perfect" yards have fewer trees and undergrowth for songbird, woodpecker, owl and hawk habitat.
Mill Mountain Park welcomes both wildlife and human beings to its imperfect -- but deeper and more sustainable -- beauty. It invites us there to share in the mystery of its natural landscape.
It doesn't care if we're "cool," nor what kind of "self-esteem" Roanokers have, for in that place, we esteem for a change something deeper, quieter, wiser and more enduring than ourselves.
