Good morning, RVA! It's 35 °F, but, despite the current chilly temperatures, today looks pretty springlike and wonderful. You can expect highs in the mid 60s, lots of sunshine, and a perfect afternoon to spend some time outside. After we get through tomorrow morning’s similarly chilly lows, get excited for the truly warm and wonderful days stretched out ahead of us!
Water cooler
Over the weekend, Pulitzer Prize Winner Michael Paul Williams wrote about the decision of Tennessee Republicans to expel two Black General Assembly members for leading a protest over gun violence. Williams ties in a couple other national headlines that also point to the ways America continues to slide away from democracy. Even though it’s a bummer, you should read it—I mean, he won the dang Pulitzer prize!
In her newsletter this past Friday, Councilmember Jordan had a quick update on the fencing surrounding the circle at Allen and Monument (which I think is a great way for an elected official to identify that particular circle): “As you may have seen, work has begun this past week on preparing the circle at Allen and Monument for the implementation of the City's temporary landscaping plan...Once that work is completed later this Spring, the jersey barriers and fencing that currently enclose the circle will be removed, and returned to the state. The barriers and fencing will remain up while the work is done, to ensure the safety of staff.” Can’t wait / about time!
City Council will meet today for their fifth budget work session, for which the entire agenda is described simply as “Presentation, Discussion and Preparation of Final Council Proposed FY 2024 Budget Amendment.” As is my sacred duty, I’ll get the audio up on the Boring Show as quick as I can. As is their sacred duty, Council will continue their work after they’ve dealt with the budget, and you can find the brief agenda for their regularly-schedule meeting here. They’ve smartly continued most things to a later meeting and reduced the regular agenda down to exactly zero items—I mean, who wants to debate contentious legislation after an entire day of contentiously debating the budget? One thing of note on their easy-breezy agenda, though, RES. 2023-R019, which will declare a housing crisis in Richmond.
Jonathan Spiers at Richmond BizSense reports on a new update to the yearslong saga of the National Bank Building on Brookland Park Boulevard. After almost a decade of private ownership and failed redevelopment plans, RRHA now owns the building—again. While it doesn’t sounds like RRHA has solid (or public) plans for the future of the space, having it pulled out of legal limbo seems like a productive first step.
Next week, Virginia Humanities and UVA’s Karsh Institute of Democracy will host two interesting, news-adjacent talks in Richmond. The first, on Thursday April 20th at 4:30 PM, will feature Margaret Talev, director of Syracuse University’s Democracy, Journalism, and Citizenship Institute. The second, on Friday April 21st at 3:45 PM (and the one I’m most excited about), is a discussion with Evan Smith, co-founder of the Texas Tribune. If I were to ever run a real local news organization with, like, actual reporters doing actual reporting, it would be modeled off of the Texas Tribune. They’re a 501(c)3, just like the Virginia Mercury, and have a really lovely mission statement: “The Texas Tribune is the only member-supported, digital-first, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.” They’re really impressive and do incredible work, and I’d love if something similar (but not statewide in focus) existed in Richmond. Unfortunately, I’m not convinced that their member-supported business model would be sustainable at a local level without significant philanthropic support. Anyway, sign up for one or both of these events, they sound great and are free and open to the public!
This morning's longread
We Can Have Both More Housing and Good Urban Form
As Richmond starts to wade into rewriting its entire zoning ordinance, I thought this advice from Strong Towns was incredibly applicable: “We need to simplify our land use regulations down to the essentials necessary to get good urban form...get the form right, and everything else will work itself out over time.”
Cities need to allow neighborhoods to thicken up, to evolve and mature over time. To do this, they need to get the zoners out of the way. They need to get rid of their modified version of a suburban development code, the one they bulked up with parking, screening, and other suburban Band-Aids—inconvenient rules they largely ignore, anyway. They need to stop their fetish for allocating density through complicated and arbitrary zoning regulations. These are not the ingredients for building great neighborhoods. Instead, we need to simplify our land use regulations down to the essentials necessary to get good urban form in the next increment of development intensity. Get the form right, and everything else will work itself out over time. Mess up the form, and we’ll prove the obvious again and again: there is no amount of regulation, process, and review that can overcome a bad zoning code.
If you’d like to suggest a longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.
Picture of the Day
This yarrow is officially the best flower in my yard now that azaleas have moved on.
