This month George Mason University announced it will build a new campus in Loudoun County, near the intersection of Route 50 and Route 659, just south of Dulles Airport. Projected to open for the fall, 2009, term, the new facility promises to provide the county with an extraordinary asset . . . and all its related liabilities.

From our perspective, those assets should far outweigh the liabilities . . . though only if our state and county government can rise to the challenge of managing the inevitable growth that will be associated with the new, 123-acre campus, donated, it should be noted by Greenvest, a North Carolina based developer.

The benefits to Loudoun and the other counties bordering on the new campus are obvious. Innovation thrives best in an environment that attracts and retains large numbers of bright, well-educated people. Universities are incredibly stable employers. They spend money, and attract it. They provide, gin out young entrepreneurs, and demand goods and services at every level of human endeavor.

Unmanaged growth around them, however, can produce Route 29 north of Charlottesville, the bars and cheap restaurants of the Georgetown of the 70's; and the shabby blight of the less attractive environs of the Maryland main campus at College Park, to name only a few examples.

We have an opportunity to avoid those architectural, visual, ecological, and traffic-driven disasters . . . but if only our government leaders have the will to think, act, and lead.

The Middleburg Town Council voted this month to be actively engaged in efforts to limit and manage growth. We must elect county and state leaders who will do the same.