Usually, this guy annoys me a lot.
Michael Paul Williams
Today, though, he actually wrote a somewhat decent column. Ignoring the fact that the front page headline reads “Who moved New York here?” there are some good ideas in the actual column:
The future of Richmond lies less in hulking edifices, performing-arts centers and new ballparks than in tapping into the energy of First Fridays and bottling it so that it’s available more than one night a month.
Virginia Commonwealth University has the right idea in pushing biotechnology. But we must not overlook one of VCU’s most precious jewels: a highly regarded art school that churns out some of the city’s most creative and resourceful minds.
…
[Gallery 5’s] executive director, Amanda Robinson, has embraced a hometown she shunned while at the Savannah College of Art and Design.
“I never wanted to come back to Richmond because I didn’t know this existed here,” she said. “I wasn’t comfortable with the mentality and the art scene. I had no idea there were so many people in hiding.”
We keep looking for answers in bricks and mortar, when our most precious assets lie in the imaginations of our most creative folks.
We must promote and nurture them if Richmond is to complete its transition from still life to renaissance city.
It’s a great thought. Cleveland had an art walk, but I wasn’t interested in a stupid art walk the rich people went to. Plus, it was out in Little Italy. It was in Cleveland Heights, not in the city itself.
The first time I drove by First Fridays, there were bikes and there was fire and it was insane. I couldn’t even believe what was going on. It’s really exciting to have something like that.
At the same time, I really don’t see what’s so different between what First Fridays has created every month, and what the performing arts center and/or the ballpark want to create, or even what Carytown or the Bottom already has. The art galleries are made of bricks and morter. They aren’t figments of creative people’s imagination, they are places where people go to spend money.
But hipster kids aren’t going to save Richmond all by their tatooed selves. They aren’t the ones that put the money into the art galleries. People putting money into the city helps to save Richmond, and it doesn’t just have to happen when people walk around at night. In terms of evidence that Richmond is a “city on the brink,” I’d say the biotech buildings going up downtown and the tremendous residential renovation going on is much stronger evidence than the fact that, once a month, people walk around Broad Street and Lift sells more coffee than usual.
The point is that there’s a lot more under Richmond’s hood than the volume of hip kids. You’ll find those everywhere. It’s people’s willingness to bet big on the city that is “saving” it. Everything the city does should aim to nurture the exciting unique urban environment that people are betting on in larger numbers, whether it is First Fridays or Carytown or Rockett’s Landing or VCU or the Biotech firms, while not giving people an incentive to stay in the suburbs, where it’s hard to be loving your daily McSperience.
So how about lowering the meals tax already?
