Good morning, RVA! It's 58 °F, and you can expect temperate highs in the 80s today followed by a chance for storms this evening. Same deal for the next couple of days, too. Maybe most of the rain will miss us?
Water cooler
As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports the seven-day average of new COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths as: 262, 43, and 16.3, respectively. VDH reports a seven-day average of 29.9 new cases in and around Richmond (Richmond: 5.4; Henrico: 14.3, and Chesterfield: 10.1). Since this pandemic began, 1,328 people have died in the Richmond region. 43.5%, 54.3%, and 50.7% of the population in Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. Good-looking averages continue! I do want to raise a tiny yellow flag that these numbers may go up in the coming days as folks shake off the long weekend and get back to entering data into spreadsheets. Prepare yourself for that, and don’t freak out too much if it happens.
As things here shift out of the pandemic and into whatever the next phase of American life looks like, I think it’s important to remember that a lot of places around the world are still fighting a horrible battle with COVID-19. Here’s a short New York Times piece checking in with the places across the globe who are shutting down schools and re-entering a summer lockdown.
Yesterday, I mentioned a forthcoming way to get involved in planning the next phase of RVA Bike Share, and then someone sent me the this survey you can fill out that includes a map of proposed locations for new stations. I asked and then received! I can’t find an official link to the survey on the City’s website, so maybe take with you a tiny grain of salt? Anyway, the included map divides the city into six pizza-pie slices instead of the typical north, south, east, and west quadrants, which is clever. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone do that before, and it matches my mental model of “parts of the city” pretty well. It’s great to finally see a handful of stations south of the river, a few on the Northside, and a decent-sized expansion into the East End (see, there I go with quadrants). The middle of the Fan is conspicuously absent of stations, just as it’s conspicuously absent of useful public transit. And, if it were me, I’d move one of the Brookland Park Boulevard stations over to Brook Road. Honestly, other than a few quibbles, the map looks pretty good. We’ll see how quickly the Department of Public Works can run this engagement process, finalize the station locations, and then get the stations on the ground.
The Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Michael Paul Williams writes about Richmond and Henrico’s attempts to put together Civilian Review Boards. Williams does a good job in this piece of tying local and national events together to paint a bleak picture of our leaders’ willingness to hold police accountable for their actions: “The electability of any politician is predicated on public safety — or more specifically, the perceived safety of white people. And America always has had a short attention span and limited endurance when it comes to sustaining the work of social justice.”
Also in the RTD, Holly Prestidge has a nice piece about Front Porch Cafe’s in-person reopening. Check this out: “On top of the cafe being a valuable resource for the community, none of the roughly eight Front Porch employees lost their jobs during that time last year...” I’m really interested in how restaurants that have started to reopen attract and retain employees. Will things go back to the way they were? Will they be any different? I guess this conversation, and a million other ones, are, in some ways, parallels to the police Civilian Review Board conversation above.
Richmond’s Department of Public Utilities has opened up their second phase of utility relief funding, which comes from CARES Act money. If you’ve fallen behind on your utility bills as a result of...all of this...tap the previous link and fill out the application right now. It’s a first-come, first-served situation and the program launched yesterday, so if you’re planning to apply you better get after it.
Brent Baldwin at Style Weekly answers a question I’ve had for a couple of days now: What happens to all of these outdoor concerts that already sold tickets before the Governor lifted capacity caps? Sounds like most promoters and organizers will leave things be for this season, rather than switch things up after folks already bought tickets. I’m personally not ready for this, but as Baldwin says: “If vaccinated, why not dive back in fully? I can’t think of a sweatier, booty bumpin’ show more likely to get up close and personal than New Orleans’ queen of bounce, Big Freedia, performing June 11 at Richmond Music Hall.”
Via /r/rva this map of the shortest routes by road to Richmond from anywhere in Virginia. It definitely reminds me of blood vessels or trees—take your pick.
This morning's longread
Home Truths: How HGTV, Magnolia, and Netflix Are Building a Massive Space in the Stream
I don’t know why, but I will always read something about home improvement TV shows and people—I don’t even watch any of this stuff!
And there are emerging competitors in the TV market, like the upcoming Magnolia Network—a television outlet under the lifestyle company started by former HGTV stars Chip and Joanna Gaines—and Netflix, which is swiftly erecting structures on the territory first settled by HGTV. If one wanted to, as I often have, one could spend whole weeks awash in nothing but discourse about marble countertops versus quartz ones, bearing happy witness to the ongoing wars between Shaker cabinets and the equally craved and dreaded open shelving. (Dreaded by me, anyway; I could never abide such a constant invitation to gaze at my own disorganization.) The domestic-design media boom has turned the idea of home into something terribly adaptable, full of possibility and never quite nice enough.
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