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poontong t1_ja7k2it wrote

Richmond’s geography and the fact that it’s an independent city surrounded by counties that aren’t particularly interested in regional planning sort of limit it’s growth potential. There just isn’t a lot of land in the city compared to, say, Charlotte which has grown much faster than Richmond.

I’ve lived in Portland in the 90’s which was right before it blew up and it was awesome. I know it gets a bad wrap now but I’m sure if you’re in the right situation there’s still a lot to love. But the growth displaced so many people and the local government gave up on the urban planning policies that they used to throttle growth. The land just became so valuable with Californians flooding in.

I think Richmond is going to follow the trend of ever American urban center. It will continue to grow, get denser, gentrify, and property values will push middle class families to the counties or smaller apartments and working class people will live in some cluster like Hopewell/Petersburg and get bussed in. Look at Springfield in northern Virginia. It won’t ever be Austin or Portland or Charlotte, for that matter. Still, the traffic will suck, the affordability will decline and some people will move to someplace a little further behind the development curve to get the “big little city” feel.

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xRVAx t1_ja7lvu8 wrote

/r/BonAir will have to become weirder once the city prices ppl out of buying their first homes there

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Charlesinrichmond t1_ja864uu wrote

we can get far more dense. There is so much open land left in Richmond. Even in places like the Fan and Museum District.

Don't understimate the impact of being so close to the DC metro, so much nicer, and so much cheaper. Doesn't take all that much of Nova to move here to change this place dramatically

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tigranes5 t1_ja8b9j9 wrote

The problem is that for many years very little new housing was built in the city. No one wanted to live here because of the crime problem. It will take much longer for Richmond to catch up to other cities. Also, as you've pointed out in the past, Richmond has a lot of public housing projects that are off limits to private developers.

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Charlesinrichmond t1_ja8hv6d wrote

you are very right of course. But we can catch up eventually. And it will get worse if we don't try

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sleevieb t1_ja7uzs3 wrote

All cities are independent in Virginia. Charlotte ftucked their tax code base up to appeal to their banks and insurance. That’s why they out grew up and they very poorly managed their growth. Almost all sprawl.

I can’t speak to portlands 90s growth but their past ten years of urban planning have been great relative to other cities. Certainly better than Arizona, Austin or Houston.

NOVA exists in a vacuum. Even if a lot of departments and beuracracy move out west, congress, the president, and the pentagon will never leave each other and that white marble. Plus the metro is a huge part of war planning in the case of gas hitting $10/gallon.

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