What's in a name? Town of Christiansburg, Small Town Living at its Best!

That sounds pretty cool, doesn't it?

What I want to know is how different people, both elected officials and citizens, interpret the phrase "PROGRESSIVE SMALL TOWN LIVING AT ITS BEST"!

First of all, Christiansburg is the 4th largest Town in Virginia according to the 2000 Census Bureau population report. In fact, of the 324 different Virginia jurisdictions for which the 2000 population is available, Christiansburg is number 240......from the bottom (lowest population). This means that Christiansburg comes in as number 84 of 240 when population is listed from highest to lowest. 84 jurisdictions have a  higher population than Christiansburg.

Type of jurisdiction	Total # of each type	Population greater than Christiansburg	Population less than Christiansburg
Town	190	3	186
City	39	23	16
County	95	58	37
TOTAL OF ALL	324	84	239

From looking at those numbers, I find it a bit hard to call Christiansburg a small town. Perhaps it was 10 or 20 years ago, but those days are gone. Christiansburg has shown phenomenal growth over the last 5-10 years and now has a larger population than many Cities and Counties.

Now, for the next part of our little phrase:
PROGRESSIVE SMALL TOWN LIVING AT ITS BEST

What does progressive mean? I will bet you that if you ask each elected official and a variety of citizens exactly what the word progressive means in relationship to Christiansburg, you would get a wide variety of responses. I certainly found a wide variety when I did a google search of "define: progressive".

Here are some of the definitions I found:

1. favoring or promoting progress
2. favoring or promoting reform (often by government action)
3. (of taxes) adjusted so that the rate increases as the amount of income increases
4. gradually advancing in extent
5. a tense of verbs used in describing action that is on-going
6. advancing in severity; "progressive paralysis"

From Wiktonary: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/progressive, I obtained this list:

1. Favouring or promoting progress; advanced
2. Gradually advancing in extent; increasing
3. Promoting or favoring progress toward better conditions or new policies, ideas, or methods

   a progressive politician

   progressive business leadership

4. Of or relating to a Progressive Party

   "This is history we have made," said Dexter Randall, a 59-year-old dairy farmer and newly elected Progressive representative from North Troy.[1]

5. Of or relating to progressive education

   a progressive school.

6. Increasing in rate as the taxable amount increases

   a progressive income tax.

7. Advancing in severity

   progressive paralysis.

8. euphemism for obscene

   a progressive picture.

I am going to take these and try to look at each one to see which interpretation best suits Christiansburg. It is interesting to see how many different interpretations of that phrase is possible. I bet it would be even more interesting to find out which citizens and visitors to our area would most likely attach to the phrase.

Have a thoughtful day!