Aric Bopp is the executive director of the New River Valley Economic Development Alliance. He can be e-mailed or phoned at 267-0007. If there is a topic you would like to see, e-mail us at newriver@roanoke.com.

The other day I overheard a conversation between two gentlemen.

It was obvious that one lived in the New River Valley and the other was considering moving to the New River Valley. It was clear that the gentleman who lived here kind of had a chip on his shoulder about the area as I certainly have had in the past.

Sometimes we find ourselves "selling" around the fact that we aren't a big city with big-city amenities such as the opera, fancy dining or other things that seem so vitally important.

Well, I guess I just haven't given it much thought, but it dawned on me today: I wonder if people that live in the "big cities" have a chip on their shoulder about traffic, congestion, overcrowding, crime, etc.

I wonder if they have similar conversations in which they say: "Sure we have this and that but it takes forever to get here and there and then it is impossible to find parking and then you hope your car hasn't been broken into when you get back to it."

I seriously doubt if they feel the need to apologize for those shortcomings, so I wonder why it is we are often quick to be the toughest critics of ourselves. I think we should stop making excuses and start feeling good about this wonderful area where we live.

Sure it doesn't have "everything," but sometimes "everything" comes with a price that isn't worth paying.

Now, I'll be the first to say that there are many areas where I hope we continue to concentrate our efforts for improvement.

But we do not need to reel off a laundry list of things we don't have or wish we had every time someone asks us about the area.

As a matter of fact, if you dig deep enough, you often find many hidden treasures already in the region that are being underutilized or, if you wait a couple of years, those things we don't have will finally arrive (welcome to the NRV Olive Garden, Best Buy, Old Navy, Sam's Club, etc.).

So let's collectively remove that chip from our shoulder and breathe a fresh air sigh of relief (do you think they mention the air quality in big cities?).