Shared Air

The horsepower of positive thinking? Today, we push up to Caroline County, home of Secretariat, and into Southside to meet Junie Donlavey, Stock Car legend. Two examples of risk and reward that defy convention and (re)define, yet again, what matters and what’s possible. Over the next week, we’re gonna begin to draw these images into [...]

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When we’ve asked people how they regard Richmond, it’s history and it’s assets, two things keep repeating: Make it relevant and make it honest. The River is almost unanimously viewed as an under-utilized asset and story. And our social history is called “just as important, if not more so” than what one respondent called “the [...]

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One of the things that seems to describe Richmond is Movement – horizontal and vertical. Frank Sprague’s trolley moved us from place to place, and his elevator moved us up and down. But we’re talking metaphors here, also. Vertical movement describes social growth and change, and we have buckets of that too. (Visit the Facebook [...]

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Big readable version of VOTE! Big readable version of BANK!
There’s no better time nor examples than post-election day and two notable Richmond women to suggest a different way to consider Richmond and the Region.
It’s cliche to say that RIC is a conservative town. But is it? Think about all the individuals or events associated with [...]

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Each fall since 9-11, the insanity of humanity witnessed by our regional community, and country, has forced a change, or shift, from our previous understanding of what’s “normal” and decent and right.
With the 2001 terrorist attacks and anthrax scares, the I-95 serial snipers in ‘02, Isabel ‘03, Gaston ‘04, Katrina ‘05 and repeat Rita ‘06 [...]

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“Paying the meter of a parking space enables one to lease precious urban real estate on a short-term basis. What is the range of possible activities for this short-term lease?”

PARK(ing) Day is Friday September 18, 2009.
Born out of Rebar’s creative exploration for how urban public space is allocated and used, PARK(ing) Day has become an [...]

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Of all the Conversations on City Centers and Economics, Transit Stops and Transfer Hubs, Flood Zones and Flex-space, Vacant “Big Box” and Heat Island Conversions, Need to Feed the Street, Labor Lags and Layoffs, or Connecting Communities to Schools and Education to Learning…this “beets” them all, green thumbs down!

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Almost out of breath but not out of hope?  Turn off the cable news chaos and pick up a good book
about relishing the journey and making good choices along the way – – because how we live and how we love is how we learn to make the world a better place, one small step [...]

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Ryan Avent @ Atlantic Magazine points out an economic reality I think regional leaders are ill-equipped to see or seemingly lack the courage to respond to. And that’s either a shame, or poetic justice, because while only playing a land use game for 30 years (all the while resisting the idea of regionalism and its [...]

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Richmond VA:  Capital City, River City, and now the first city in Virginia, and likely the United States, to have a major urban park system preserved in perpetuity under a conservation easement.

Signed into law on 29 May 2009, the Conservation Easement places about 280 acres of parkland, including the James River Park System, Great Shiplock [...]

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