Well if they said it, it must be so!

WE ARE NICE PLACE.

If you don’t like chicken wing bones and a cat at Lowe’s then you can just GTFO

Not a single mention of Francine. Fake news.

The New York Times says we are a land of contrasts.

Chicken wings bones, The cat at Lowes

These are a few of my favorite things

From the article you would think Richmond is stuck in the 1860's with a bunch of slave owners still. Jeesh. Is that really how big city people view us?

> Over the years, Richmond has drawn me back multiple times, each visit a deeper dive into Civil War history — with plenty of breaks for cramming in all the delicious food I can. On my most recent trip, as I scouted out museums, restaurants and historic neighborhoods, I was curious to feel the city’s pulse, to see how it was recovering.

until very recently I couldnt walk the dog without running into folks waving confederate flags and trying to goad me into arguments, it definitely flavored the environment

Like it or not, yeah. Every smaller city gets pigeonholed with some stereotype, we got “burned down in the civil war.” Every time I see a Richmond article it’s always the same thing. I’m not saying there’s not an element of truth, but you’d think after 15 years of the same thing, people wouldn’t be playing the rebuilding/wrestling-with-the-past bullet points in every single article.

Modern journalism is all about phoning it in

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Is saison even open?!

Is Lillie pearl the resteraunt where the whole staff walked out of one resteraunt and moved next door to start a competing one?

WE'RE FULL OUR NICENESS HAS GONE TOO FAR. EVERYONE SHOOT GUNS IN THE AIR

-grumpy people on r/rva

So accurate.

Definitely better than New York!

Those damn Yankees failed at Reconstruction!

Until about two weeks ago there was a Confederate monument down the street from me. Until about two years ago there was a street named Confederate Ave just a few blocks from me.

Lol adorable

Don’t forget the opossums and sometimes frogs

The comments in that article are a wild ride. Looks like lots of blue blood Richmonders lamenting the loss of their precious monuments. I know a couple of people that fit that mold, but I don't ever hear these complaints in the circles I run in.

Right? I realize every article needs an angle, but “how it was recovering?” The specters of the civil war and institutional racism loom over the city, but you’d think there were buildings still smouldering from 1865.

> Saison is always worth a visit

so much for that

Here comes the “should i move here” posts

Duloc Richmond is a perfect place

Lack of budget these days to deal with harder hitting stories.

I remember my coworker wouldn't go to Charlottesville because they tore down the Lee statue... Those kinds of people are out there.

I grew up with confederate flags in the christmas parade.

Whenever these articles come up I'm always thinking we are patting ourselves on the back and not thinking systemically about what is happening.

IMO I think it's more important that lower class disproportionately black Americans get into good housing with good schools than statues.

I think BLM's moment at least for now has come and gone (negative approval rating now vs March it was overwhelmingly positive) and we mostly renamed schools and tore down some statues and learned more about how we did/are segregating.

I think the race problem is always painted as worse in the south when I think the north has multiple marks they are dramatically worse.

I had a couple family members move out of the city because of the monuments coming down.

Embarrassing. Their loss though, as their former home values skyrocketed in the year following the sales. Now they live in the county and the new properties have actually decreased in value since they moved out there.

Been to new york a handful of times and the place smell like sh*t on a hot summers day and everything was triple the price and 5x worse quality wise. It always amazes me how many people are willing to put up with living in such a miserable place.

New York is an incredibly myopic city, some lifelong citizens there view it like Europeans view their capital cities, as the lens through which the rest of the world is to be viewed.

Which is weird to me because NYC is an extreme outlier as far as American cities go. It's like 10 cities mushed together.

...you have been along the James River in August, right?

Grew up in Richmond. Lived in NYC for 11 years. Moved back to Richmond 2 years ago. You put up with the prices and the smells and the noise and the crowds and the taxes because you have access to some of the best museums in the world, some of the best restaurants in the world, an unparalleled nightlife scene, vast public transit, and a well-paying job market.

With that said — if there comes a point where those things are no longer your primary wants in life, then yeah it becomes less worth it.

I’m sure Charlottesville was all the much poorer for it.

The Tony Horowitz book mentioned in the article was a great read 15 years ago and stands out in my memory as perhaps the funniest non-fiction book I’ve ever read.

Note to self, go by Lowe's and pay respects to cat next time I see y'all.

No u shuts up!

The smells you find in Shockhoe Bottom rival anything my nose encountered on a long July day in NYC.

Live here my whole life and the river can get fragrant but nothing compared to new york just general stench.

I would say not really, but you believe what you want

"I'm from NY and WFH and want to move somewhere I can buy an overpriced condo so I still feel like the city, does Richmond have that?"

Hey, man — people can have different opinions.

Exactly if Richmond is to small for people, they should leave, and move to a bigger city. i meet a lot more people moving from New York than people moving to new york from Richmond. Plus your the one commenting on my comment. I just wanted to express my personal opinion that Richmond offer a much better quality of life for Virginia than New york does for new yorkers….

I could throw a rock in Brooklyn and hit someone from Virginia. A lot of people from York, PA too for some reason I never figured out.

And again — it depends on what you’re quality of life entails.

BINGO

The NYT has a dang good budget

But the deep dives on some local issues. If they want to spend the money they can but their revenue is down by 2/3 since 2006 and the Richmond local papers aren't laying some ground work for them in the same way.

hah, karma has a way!

I wondered if the recovery was from covid? It was vague.

Overall, this feels like an article they write about us every few years. Just a little updated.

>WE ARE AM NICE PLACE.

Every Times Dispatch article about NYC should start with "New York City, a haven for Loyalists fleeing the American colonies, was occupied by the British until the absolute very end of the Revolution and will forever be defined that way. It's really coming into its own now though."

I always get a sensible chuckle when they talk about how the city is a war zone filled with roving gangs.

Like, how do these people get through life when they think anything “edgier” than going to Cheesecake Factory in Short Pump is inherently dangerous?

"1,000 square feet for under a quarter mil? Sign me up!"

Hi! My partner and I are planning a move, and Richmond is currently our #1 choice! We are curious about safety in the Fan neighborhood, and whether we can find something that fits our budget. We are both remote DC workers, and have a cash budget of up to 900k for a starter home, maybe more if we finance :) Where is the best brunch in RVA? Also, how is the school district? We are currently DINK, and if we do have children we will probably send them to private school- I am only asking really because I hate poor children and want to talk about it. Thank you, we cannot wait to make Richmond our forever home!

lmao so condescending and self-satisfied

>> “Visitors to Virginia’s capital will find a Monument Avenue devoid of Confederate statues, a lively dining scene featuring Black-owned restaurants, and exhibitions that take on the city’s complicated past.”

what American city doesn’t have a ‘complicated past’ especially with issues of race and deeply-entrenched systemic racial inequality? looking right at you, new york city, especially your schools, your cops, and your jails/prisons. what a bunch of smug shallow liberal pat-on-the-back hogwash that has absolutely no critical value. good riddance to the monuments, but fuck you, NYT.

Recovery being vague is kind of the thing. Richmond is always viewed in a lens as “recovering” from something. Civil war, reconstruction, world wars, “economic troubles” of various varieties, our “troubled past.”

On the one hand, it’s good because we always seem to get a little bit of a pass. On the other, it’s really fucking condescending. “Aw, look at this little city, it’s so cute how they have these adorable cafes and microbreweries even though just yesterday they were a bunch of murder capital racist drug corridor confederates!” These articles read with the same good natured superiority as when you compliment a little kid for being dad’s big helper working on the deck.

If you look at data, the north is actually more segregated in schools and housing than the south.

Saison is closed.

"I heard it's in some 'addition' place"

You think people are moving here in droves now? Wait till the Times has a crush on you. Ready, set, go!

With 10 cities worth of garbage dumped on top to blow around in the wind.

Speaking of which, has Boston recovered from it's history of revolutionary zeal and anti-taxation propaganda activists?

Also, the prevalence of black owned restaurants isn’t remarkable here? There really aren’t THAT many.

I lived in NYC for 15 years before moving to Richmond 2 months ago. I've asked many people there where they would like to retire or which city they would prefer moving to if they could move anywhere and often I get a look like I have two heads. Why would you live anywhere other than New York?

Shockoe Bottom got that message a while back.

Old line is south was segregated by law, but lived together, north was integrated by law, but lived apart. Contains truth.

you don't expect them to actually do journalism do you? Sweet summer child, lets talk.

I'm impressed the author even visited richmond before writing the article.

yep!

but we did it, so I throw no stones

can someone tag this "Moving" pls

I like NYC. Family is from there. Plurality of my friends live there.

I'd still rather live in Richmond. City is great to visit but a pain in the ass to live in

I like NYC. Have lived there. Family from there. Best friends are there.

I'd rather live in Richmond. But I visit NYC a lot.

There are a surprising number of people who commute from RVA to NYC for work so they can live in RVA

yep

Ironically I only hear it from people from Goochland. And on here occasionally.

People did move out of the fan because of the riots. But others moved in.

Same. NYC was great when I was in my 20’s and just wanted to drink my way across Brooklyn. But now I’m wanting to settle down and start a family and you can’t do that in NYC if you don’t make six figures. Still miss it like hell though.

“Mansion-lined” is a little over the top for describing Monument Ave.

for 20s, NYC hands down pretty much. I'm always a bit bemused when I see Richmond noted as a good place for 2Os people. Its not a town I would have moved to until my 30s. (moved here from Boston).

As for NYC I remember one girl in the west village saying "you can get anything you want... except the basic necessities of life conveniently"

love visiting, would do so once a month if life permitted, but living here is sooo much easier

Connecticut’s schools, for example, are precisely as segregated as those in Georgia — 84% of Black students in mostly minority schools according to Connecticut Public Radio. New York and New Jersey rate in the top ten; Virginia does not.

Yeah from the article you would think that the City has a bunch of massive statues commemorating slave owners and treasonous seditionists but I mean come on we haven’t had that for like at least three weeks.

I ain’t reading all that

I agree with this

You should never mix business an pleasure

Shockoe Bottom shoots their guns into the RIVER. Chesterfield is where we shoot the sky.

>Is that really how big city people view us?

I hope so. It's probably the only reason we aren't already NOVA.

Just wait until new year's eve.

My mistake, I couldn't hear the traumatized screams of the fish.

oh that's cute...a New York socialite known for various posts about food and travel does a random piece about a compelling new chapter (Richmond) then quips about The Jasper in Carytown.

How about an article named after one of your beloved airports from a guy who really hated pinball machines

Watched it happen in Portland starting 2008/2009ish. Then Portlandia came out and boom. Droves. We’re on the same path here for sure, hopefully minus a TV show.

The other piece is the Pacific Northwest banned black people for awhile there or at least Oregon...

How so?

Grew up in Richmond, spent about half of my career in NYC, the other half in California and Portland.

Why are you all so enraged? Richmond is a speck on the map compared to NYC. A lovely speck I love coming home to, but that’s the realistic context. If you’re the dorkiest kid in college who gets invited out or recognized by a pretty girl, maybe don’t spit in her face.

Judgements on city quality from someone who's chosen to live in NYC? What's next, restaurant reviews from a dog who eats his own vomit?

Exactly. You can feel the oncoming condescension within the first paragraph and it goes on from there… a spattering of kind platitudes without really ever getting beyond the decided theme they’ve chosen for Richmond, inevitably Civil War/struggling with racism/rebirth and some restaurants. They miss so much.

Lefty pinko rag.

The day when, in my neighborhood, playing "Guns or Fireworks" is a lot harder than usual.

These are the people who consider Olive Garden "ethnic" food.

>Is that really how big city people view us?

Tbh, Richmond is not even on the radar of most Americans. I talk to people from all over the country in big cities (through work), and most raise their eyebrows when I say I live here and not Austin, NYC, DC, Denver, Bay Area etc. I get the "what's it like there?" question often. The most common thing people say is "I have heard it's beautiful out there". My hometown in the Midwest can't even find Virginia on a map.

Exception being people who have visited UR for campus tours etc. That school draws fancy folk from all over it seems.

You know, we were a crime capital 15 years ago

Lol same but i like to throw a stone or two