Good morning, RVA! It's 55 °F, and today looks legitimately hot. You should expect sunshine and temperatures in the upper 80s—maybe even in the 90s if, for some reason, you’re standing on a sea of baking asphalt. Regardless, sounds like a wonderful day to lay in a hammock or get some work done on a porch. Enjoy, and stay hydrated!
Water cooler
I’ve written about how much I love the City’s plan to eliminate parking minimums for months now (ORD. 2023-101, which will hit Planning Commission’s agenda on April 17th). It’ll make life easier for small businesses, decrease the amount of valuable space used to store cars, and, hopefully, make a little more room for desperately needed housing. So far I haven’t seen a massive wave of opposition from the typical set of folks, which I’m still kind of holding my breath over. However, this entirely positive article about the proposal by Em Holter at the Richmond Times-Dispatch makes me wonder if maybe we just won’t see major organized opposition materialize after all. Honestly, that’d be a pretty big vibe shift for Richmond!
Pulitzer Prize Winner Michael Paul Williams writes about the Governor’s clandestine decision to make it harder for folks to have their voting rights restored. The Governor’s current policy, in which he individually considers each and every person with a felony conviction, “has roots in the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1901-02, which occurred during an era in which Southern Democrats reasserted white dominance that had weakened during the Reconstruction era.“ You’re going to want to tap through and read a shocking quote from a delegate at that Convention speaking on behalf of this very same, horrible policy now supported by our current governor 120 years later.
Jahd Khalil at VPM reports on some interesting numbers related to the number of people attempting to stay at inclement weather shelters this past winter in Richmond. The City and its partners had a hard time getting their shelter plan together last year—launching after their target deadline and with fewer shelters than originally planned (two instead of four). That limited capacity early on may have impacted the number of folks seeking shelter: “Michael Rogers, programs director at Homeward, said it was a ‘reasonable assumption’ that people perhaps didn't bother going to shelters after hearing they were already full.” I certainly don’t know enough to have thoughts on how to smooth out this process for the coming year (or how to make sure folks have a place to go during ever-increasing extreme heat events!). But maybe there’s hope to be found in adding capacity on the city side of things: Khalil reports that the Mayor has included funds for another homelessness services liaison in his proposed budget.
Wayne Covil at WTVR reports on some A+ tactical urbanism by a man in Hopewell who got tired of calling the City to fill a pothole on his street so he...planted a tree in it! Frustratingly, the City somehow found time to come out and remove the tree but not fill the pothole. Only after a replacement tree found its way to TikTok did a crew come out and actually fill the dang pothole. Lightheartedly shaming on social media is not a scalable replacement for infrastructure maintenance, but, unfortunately, this is how it works sometimes!
Via /r/rva, your moment of whimsy: A misspelled street sign at Main and St(r)afford.
Indictment.fyi has the surprisingly short update on yesterday’s Trumpian media circus. I think the big takeaways for me are 1) Donald Trump has been charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in a scheme to “promote a candidacy by unlawful means,” and 2) The trial is gonna be a slowburner: “The next procedural hearing is scheduled for December 4th...and, if the case is not dismissed at that hearing (which Trump's attorneys are certain to request) a trial won't happen until sometime next year.” Can’t wait to live through a presidential election season taking place alongside a trial to convict an ex-president of felonies!
This morning's longread
Americans’ Climate Migration Has Begun
Five years ago I thought Richmond needed to start planning for how to welcome thousands of climate refugees from the beach due to sea level rise. I still think that, but now I also think we need to prepare for even more folks migrating north for (relatively) cooler temperatures from points south and west.
After natural disasters that render areas or regions uninhabitable, Bittle argues, many people will seek out deeply resourced cities that can recover faster than rural areas. The long-term effects of climate change also prompt him to provide some regional speculations. Cincinnati and Buffalo could become more attractive for climate migrants outrunning disaster. Buffalo (this season’s brutal snowstorms notwithstanding) boosters have been selling the city as a climate refuge. While retirees make decisions on a shorter timeline more inclined to warmth, younger people may well steel themselves for the climate crises ahead, and northern tiers of the U.S. are more likely to house them. Here, Bittle rightly raises the ugly specter of climate gentrification. Despite what census data reveals about population flows to Texas, Florida, and Arizona, for instance, the South and Southwest will actually disgorge people and industries in the coming decades due to increasing temperatures and water scarcity.
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Picture of the Day
As a friend said, it’s the great unfurling!
