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Many of us are familiar with the parable of the farmer who sowed his fields with the finest seed but refused to share with his neighbor.

Because of his myopia, the farmer's crop never reached its full potential because his neighbor's seeds and weeds kept invading and infecting his land.

I'm reminded of this tale as I look to the state of the union between the Roanoke and New River valleys.

A couple of years ago, the Center for Regional Strategies, a now-defunct think tank based at Virginia Tech, issued a report that claimed Southwest Virginia would forever lag until the Roanoke and New River valleys learned to cooperate better.

Unlike most metropolitan areas, Roanoke lacks a four-year university and all the research ideas, talent and dollars it brings. While the New River Valley has such an institution in Virginia Tech, and to a lesser degree Radford University, it lacks the amenities -- arts, transportation, health care and the like -- commonly found in a metropolis.

A stronger bond between these two regional "hubs," so the report maintained, can only benefit us all. But instead of spinning along together, the hubs have traditionally tended to rotate on their own axes -- more apt to collide or crisscross than to cooperate.

At the time, as both the report's editor and a resident of Elliston -- the halfway point between Virginia Tech and Roanoke -- I championed this claim.

But these days I'm left wondering: Why should we?

Why should we, the New River Valley, bind ourselves to such a feckless partner?

Why should we betroth ourselves to Roanoke whose anxieties will result in delay after delay in setting the date?

Look at the headlines that have dominated Roanoke government these past few years:

Should we tear down Victory Stadium?  Do we want a restaurant on Mill Mountain?

n How expensive and ugly an art museum should we build?

Can we keep a hot dog stand in Center in the Square?

Never mind that its schools rank among the poorest in the state. Never mind that its population continues to shrink and jobs flee elsewhere.

None of that matters, folks. Because one day, perhaps at least until the next election, Roanoke is going to vote, by a 4-2 majority with one abstaining, to approve a design firm to conceptualize an amphitheater.

On Orange Avenue.

Or the old Victory Stadium site.

Maybe.

By comparison, the 6-year-old saga of the old Blacksburg Middle School is moving at warp speed.

The last straw was last week's Roanoke election -- or rather, re-election -- of the glad-handed, do-nothing David Bowers.

Judging by the political leadership chosen by Roanokers versus that chosen in the New River Valley, maybe it's for the best that our valleys aren't bound by too many ties.

Granted, decision-making in New River Valley governments isn't always perfect. Case in point is the proposal to build a $30 million Montgomery County Courthouse -- an ever-expanding boondoggle that has gone up $15 million in price over the past five years.

Still, in looking at the winners in last week's municipal elections in Radford, Christiansburg and Blacksburg, at Virginia Tech's Corporate Research Center and its new arts initiative, at the health of our area's nonprofits exemplified by the Community Foundation of the New River Valley, I have more confidence in business and government leadership here than that of Roanoke with its endless melodramas over micro-issues.

Roanoke recently had a chance to embrace regional cooperation when representatives from local governments came together to weigh in on the Norfolk Southern intermodal port that the railroad wants to put in Elliston.

Montgomery County -- supported by its towns and Pulaski County -- opposed the site, while Roanoke declared it to be just fine. (How decisive Roanoke can be on projects and issues outside its boundaries.)

No, as much as we all stand to gain from stronger relations between our region's hubs, Roanoke's spinning wheels aren't going to move us forward anytime soon.

To advance, we in the New River Valley would do better to look to ourselves, tend our own fields and try all the harder to keep out the neighbor's weeds.

Michael Hemphill is a former Roanoke Times reporter who lives in Elliston.