Good morning, RVA! It's 53 °F, and today looks wonderful with highs in the mid 70s and plenty of sunshine. The weather wonderfulness should continue straight on through the weekend, too. Enjoy!
Water cooler
What a rollercoaster of emotions for booster shots over the last couple of days! To recap: The FDA recommended Pfizer booster shots six months after the second dose for people older than 65, people at high risk for severe COVID-19, and frontline workers. Then, yesterday evening, a CDC advisory committee recommended Pfizer boosters for people older than 65 and people at high risk for severe COVID-19—leaving out frontline workers and creating a gap between the FDA recommendations and their own decision. At some point early this morning (this New York Times piece was updated at 2:40 AM), the director of the CDC overruled that recommendation and brought their official, final (for now) guidance in line with the FDA's by adding back in frontline workers. While the NYT wants to blame politics for the turbulent decision making process, and I'm sure Biden's public announcement of Boosters By September 20th didn't help things, having the FDA and CDC publicly disagree about who should get booster doses would have ultimately (and further) eroded trust in the entire COVID-19 vaccine situation. At the time of writing, I'd imagine our state and local health officials are 1) asleep, and 2) still working through the details of the middle-of-the-night announcement. That means: If you're newly eligible for a booster, don't rush out to get one today expecting a smooth and consistent experience. Remember, your existing two doses still provide a ton of protection against COVID-19! Now that we have an initial framework for Pfizer boosters, I imagine Moderna will follow suit in the coming weeks.
Meg Schiffres at VPM has a long look at the community-built space around Marcus-David Peters Circle, what the State's Department of General Services did with signage and memorials that remained in the circle after that horrible fencing went up, and what happens next. I think a lot of the frustration about the State's handling of this space—aside from the fencing which literally keeps the public out of a space that the public themselves reclaimed and reimagined—comes from the lack of a visible process to remake the circle. The longer nothing happens, the more it feels like the plan is to return MDP circle to a sun-baked, shadeless, circle of grass. I don't think anyone wants that, so let's get some public meetings going! Or at least a survey, we all love surveys!
The Richmond Times-Dispatch's Mel Leonor has the update on Virginia's Redistricting Commission, and it is, once again, stressful. From the piece: "The possibility that the state’s new legislative maps might include fewer districts — not more — where people of color can sway the outcome of an election is the source of heated tension within the state’s redistricting commission. Greta Harris, co-chair of Virginia’s new commission, said Thursday that 'it feels morally corrupt' that the panel has not coalesced around a set of guidelines for when and how to draw the new districts." And this group only has until October 10th to settle on new maps to present for a vote at the General Assembly! Just 16 days from now! Stressful.
Want to lease a LEED Platinum, net-zero energy building on the Northside that at one time was used to repair electric trolleys and is also on the Brook Road bike lane? Jonathan Spiers at Richmond BizSense has all the details on what could be your next very cool office.
If you're looking, I've got two art-themed ways for you to spend this beautiful weekend! First, head down to Brown's Island and take in the newly-unveiled Emancipation and Freedom Monument. If you do get to wandering, remember the Pipeline and its adjacent trails are still closed. Second, the VMFA has a new Ansel Adams exhibit opening today, which seems like a big deal. The RTD's Coleen Curran has some more details on that, if, for some reason, you need convincing.
This morning's longread
The Look of Gentrification
Lots of great / hard-to-read sentences in this piece about gentrification. As per always: We need to build more housing everywhere.
As a byproduct of this segregation, things which appear new and are visible are treated with immediate suspicion and hostility. People are understandably hostile to an influx of money that they see coinciding with displacement, even if they can’t accurately identify the individuals responsible for this inequity (as was the case with the misdirected tech bus protests). The major capital influx of high income employees bidding up existing housing—because no housing was built where they work—is much harder to attack than a hip coffee shop or a condo. While these problems would be mitigated through an abundance of housing which is a failure of government, companies whose white-collar jobs consist exclusively of highly educated whites and Asians, and whose lowly paid jobs consist of everybody else, ultimately bring much of this resentment onto themselves.
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