Good morning, RVA! It's 33 °F, and that’s cold! But, later today, you can expect highs in the 60s followed by the most beautiful weekend weather: Saturday and Sunday will bring temperatures near 70 °F, sunshine, and memories of summer. I hope you’ve got outside plans, because we’re in for a great next couple of days.
Water cooler
I know, I know, we’re all tired of reading about Casino 2.0—and I’m tired of writing about it! Just four more days, y’all, and then...well, and then we’ll probably have to talk about the dang thing a ton more (regardless of how Tuesday’s referendum turns out). Anyway, I wanted to link to this piece from Jahd Khalil in VPM, because he links to this independent assessment of Richmond’s gaming market that the City commissioned back in 2021. It lays out the revenue potential for a casino in Richmond—both where and who that revenue could come from. I’ve filed this PDF away and set a reminder to look at it in a couple years so we can compare/contrast the Casino 2.0’s projected revenue to its actual revenue (assuming the referendum passes this coming Tuesday, of course).
Remember earlier this week when I wrote about how Libbie Mill was a fascinatingly dense-yet-disconnected neighborhood? Well, Eric Kolenich at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that the developer who owns the whole area has plans for 15 more residential buildings that would bring 300 additional apartments online. With 1,500 folks already living in the neighborhood now, and a ton more apartments coming soon, I still think connecting Libbie Mill into the rest of the surrounding area should be a top priority for the County.
Tonight and tomorrow night, 1708 Gallery will host the 2023 version of InLight, their long-running public exhibition of contemporary, light-based and light-adjacent art. Each year, InLight takes a bunch of artists, sets up shop in an interesting part of town, and has those artists create wonderful public art installations. This year, InLight returns to the Arts District with a handful of locations on and slightly off Broad Street (making it super easy to drop in by bike or by bus). The whole experience of walking through some part of town at night and discovering a whole art installation placed in a park, or a storefront, or projected onto a wall is super neat and always a good time—plus the weather this weekend looks amazing!
Also today and tomorrow, stop by the Main Library (101 E. Franklin Street) for the Friends for the Richmond Public Library fall book sale. Libraries are such a unobjectionably good part of our city. Drop in, pick up some books for cheap, and support an (unobjectionably) good cause!
Reminder! Daylight Saving Time, a dumb thing that I’m pretty sure we now keep around solely to have arguments about, ends this weekend. Clocks roll back, I guess we technically “get another hour of sleep,” and my body’s generally confused for a day or two.
This morning's longread
An American Puzzle: Fitting Race in a Box
The New York Times has a really fascinating look at the long and changing history of the race box on American’s census forms. Make sure you spend some time looking at the (also really fascinating) scans of the old forms, too.
Since 1790, the decennial census has played a crucial role in creating and reshaping the ever-changing views of racial and ethnic identity in the United States. Over the centuries, the census has evolved from one that specified broad categories — primarily “free white” people and “slaves” — to one that attempts to encapsulate the country’s increasingly complex demographics. The latest adaptation proposed by the Biden administration in January seeks to allow even more race and ethnicity options for people to describe themselves than the 2020 census did. If approved, the proposed overhaul would most likely be adopted across all surveys in the country about health, education and the economy. Here’s what the next census could look like.
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Picture of the Day
A fall forest rainbow.
