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Passing by Petersburg on 95 it certainly looked rough around the edges but Hopewell, is it usually as bad as Petersburg?
I'm giving a long illustration to highlight what I know about the area...
I grew up in Hopewell-Petersburg when we left Woodbridge. Specifically, I grew up about 2.8 miles from the nearest Hopewell border; about 6.5 miles from the nearest Petersburg border; and about 21 miles from the nearest Richmond border, in Prince George...
This is a window of mid-90s to mid-00s, so we're 17 years removed from when I left the area initially in 2005. Growing up in the area, there was nothing in Prince George, it was a relocation spot for black natives of the Tri-Cities, a relocation spot to a lesser degree for Richmonders, and a healthy amount of transplants because of Fort Lee. There was a decent amount of white families from PG, and a decent amount of black families too, but the neighborhood I grew up in was a healthy mix of the backgrounds I just outlined...
The actual town of PG was tiny and had no shopping centers. We didn't live in the town of PG, we lived in the northern county near Hopewell, and we had a small strip mall in my neighborhood with a Food Lion, a cleaners, a pizzeria, and a discount video store, with a Citgo across the street:
Posting the link so you can see how close it is to Hopewell, there used to be a cut thru the woods behind Food Lion from our neighborhood, we'd walk and bike it all the time...
This was it, though. There was nowhere to go clothes shopping in PG, there were no restaurants, there was no entertainment, you literally lived and went to school in PG but did virtually everything else outside of PG, if you lived in the part of PG I did. So it's accurate for me to say I grew up around the area. Hopewell's two major shopping centers at the time were The Crossings and Cavalier Square, and we were teenagers, it was close enough to walk to via different paths on days we had no ride to where we wanted to go. 4th Of July fireworks from Ft Lee used to be seen at The Crossings where you could holla at girls too, Oaklawn was the major thoroughfare thru Hopewell with all the entertainment, the discount movie theater and restaurants. They extended the PAT to Hopewell via The Crossings back in like '03 or something and we could walk or bike to The Crossings and catch the bus into The Burg...
Everybody had friends or knew people from Hopewell proper, it was right up the street, and PG High has a tiny percentage of Hopewell proper students in its jurisdiction from Stratford Woods. At least it used to...
I can do this same outline for Petersburg, when they built the Walmart on South Crater it was a game changer, an entire shopping district sprang around it, and while I didn't live as close to it, it was closer than going to the Southpark Walmart in Colonial Heights and there are people who lived and went to PG schools who literally lived right down the street from it, like how the Food Lion in my neighborhood is a literal 7-block drive from Hopewell city limits...
Everybody knew people from Petersburg...
I can do this for Richmond too, to an extent, because ultimately the Tri-Cities are very small cities, all your major entertainment was in Rich. The volume ans variety of restaurants, we'd go to Braves games, WWF events, the bigger malls, there were things you needed to go to Richmond for that everyone in the Tri-Cities went to occasionally because that was the city. My mother had friends in neighborhoods like Jackson Ward/Carver, she worked as a nail tech on the Southside near Meadowbrook for a time, etc...
We all knew people from Richmond too...
When I was growing up, neither Hopewell nor Petersburg were as bad as they've gotten now. Both were always a little rough, sure. Petersburg had the bad reputation, though there were a couple middle class black areas in the city. Hopewell's demographics have changed drastically in 20 years, it used to essentially mirror what PG was, around a third black and bordering 60% white, and in truth PG and Hopewell are in some ways joined at the hip. I've forgotten more things than I can remember but Hopewell, Petersburg, that's home...
Hopewell's problem areas used to be restricted to the project areas and immediate surroundings, it's more widespread now. As the demographics shifted in the city, it just attracted a lower economic class of people, and in truth Hopewell has been in decline for many, many years. There are no real redeeming qualities about the city. It has a redneck flair, as I said it used to be substantially white, it has a redneck flair Petersburg doesn't have and is pretty segregated. But it's a poor city...
Petersburg is too nut the rebirth of Downtown Petersburg in the early 2010s made it a return destination that Hopewell doesn't have (Downtown Hopewell is weak), and improved the image of Petersburg as a livable place, because even as economic issues still persist, there's been gentrification in Petersburg areas, a few, and more Richmonders have relocated to The Burg to live or do business. It has more charm than Hopewell...
No one has any reason to move to Hopewell unless you're from or tied to the city, and it hasn't experienced any detectable gentrification because some areas that are rough today weren't rough 20+ years ago...
Both have gotten worse, following the trends of increased violence countrywide post-Freddy Gray, and it seems to have stuck. Richmond is the only city that was worse in generations past but safer today...
Passing by Petersburg on 95 it certainly looked rough around the edges but Hopewell, is it usually as bad as Petersburg?
Murk gave a better perspective. I'm not familiar with Hopewell, but from my limited gatherings, this looks to already be a record high. This has unfortunately become a norm for Petersburg, but for Hopewell, this is totally unprecedented.
Murk gave a better perspective. I'm not familiar with Hopewell, but from my limited gatherings, this looks to already be a record high. This has unfortunately become a norm for Petersburg, but for Hopewell, this is totally unprecedented.
I believe Hopewell has had 8 or 9 before, may be mistaken on that but this isn't the first time they've had 7. The RTD used to keep an online Homicide Report for Central Virginia that they inexplicably discontinued in 2017 or 2018 (can't remember which year). This isn't Hopewell's first time at 7...
But just like Petersburg, Hopewell's most violent years are all 2015 to present, Petersburg was rough but it was never this bad, I think its record high homicides before 2015 was 12 or 13---->12 or 13 would be a good year in Petersburg today...
And routinely Petersburg was in that 7-10 range growing up. Granted, The Burg was always hovering around ~35,000 population in my youth, so 7-10 murders was still a lot, and it had that reputation certainly as a wild city, but it wasn't Richmond. We know what Richmond was in the 00s and 90s (and 80s, and 70s, etc). Petersburg was rough but it wasn't remotely comparable to the worst areas of Richmond that were literal killing zones...
That's reversed as Rich's livability has improved markedly post-recession, and Petersburg's has too, but it's posting "golden era" Richmond-level violence...
Hopewell before 2015 I don't think ever had more than 5 murders in a year, and it might actually ne 4. Routine was 2-3 per year, a city that was always around 23,000 growing up, it was reasonably high bit typically only half of Petersburg...
And you'll recall this about high school bro, that was generally the thought Petersburg kids had, that Hopewell was "little brother" and sweet in comparison. Of course, Petersburg called everyone sweet, as in scale of drugs and violent crime it was a true anomaly among the other Tri-Cities (Hopewell, Colonial Heights, Dinwiddie, Prince George). Petersburg was different and not just negative, it had some positive markers that made it unique too...
Hopewell is Tidewater-lite, and if you look up their history, the city has long ties to Norfolk and The Peninsula in the old, old, old days. They have a Tidewater-ish accent too, has a neighborhood build really similar to NPN/Hampton. It's unique in that regard, as it and especially the southeast reaches of PG that run into Surry, have a Tidewater vibe, which I'd guess is at least partly owed to its historic commercial activity with Tidewater....
Culturally, Petersburg is a blend of Richmond City and Southside Virginia, equally so almost but depending on where you are in town the lean can tilt stronger one way or the other. Historically of course Petersburg was the major city for the Southside pre-automobile, and even as it lost its influence to places like Lynchburg and Danville, that are firmly within The Southside, I have noticed Petersburg still has some name recognition with Southside Virginians as a minor destination...
I believe Hopewell has had 8 or 9 before, may be mistaken on that but this isn't the first time they've had 7. The RTD used to keep an online Homicide Report for Central Virginia that they inexplicably discontinued in 2017 or 2018 (can't remember which year). This isn't Hopewell's first time at 7...
But just like Petersburg, Hopewell's most violent years are all 2015 to present, Petersburg was rough but it was never this bad, I think its record high homicides before 2015 was 12 or 13---->12 or 13 would be a good year in Petersburg today...
And routinely Petersburg was in that 7-10 range growing up. Granted, The Burg was always hovering around ~35,000 population in my youth, so 7-10 murders was still a lot, and it had that reputation certainly as a wild city, but it wasn't Richmond. We know what Richmond was in the 00s and 90s (and 80s, and 70s, etc). Petersburg was rough but it wasn't remotely comparable to the worst areas of Richmond that were literal killing zones...
That's reversed as Rich's livability has improved markedly post-recession, and Petersburg's has too, but it's posting "golden era" Richmond-level violence...
Hopewell before 2015 I don't think ever had more than 5 murders in a year, and it might actually ne 4. Routine was 2-3 per year, a city that was always around 23,000 growing up, it was reasonably high bit typically only half of Petersburg...
And you'll recall this about high school bro, that was generally the thought Petersburg kids had, that Hopewell was "little brother" and sweet in comparison. Of course, Petersburg called everyone sweet, as in scale of drugs and violent crime it was a true anomaly among the other Tri-Cities (Hopewell, Colonial Heights, Dinwiddie, Prince George). Petersburg was different and not just negative, it had some positive markers that made it unique too...
Hopewell is Tidewater-lite, and if you look up their history, the city has long ties to Norfolk and The Peninsula in the old, old, old days. They have a Tidewater-ish accent too, has a neighborhood build really similar to NPN/Hampton. It's unique in that regard, as it and especially the southeast reaches of PG that run into Surry, have a Tidewater vibe, which I'd guess is at least partly owed to its historic commercial activity with Tidewater....
Culturally, Petersburg is a blend of Richmond City and Southside Virginia, equally so almost but depending on where you are in town the lean can tilt stronger one way or the other. Historically of course Petersburg was the major city for the Southside pre-automobile, and even as it lost its influence to places like Lynchburg and Danville, that are firmly within The Southside, I have noticed Petersburg still has some name recognition with Southside Virginians as a minor destination...
Well I appreciate that in depth explanation. Being from the other Prince Georges County in MD I've always heard Petersburg was rough but never rates above 40 or so. Always knew about Richmond but never heard about Portsmouth either they seem to be doing bad lately too.. Its interesting how the Tidewater accent sound similar to DMV but not Richmond area.
Well I appreciate that in depth explanation. Being from the other Prince Georges County in MD I've always heard Petersburg was rough but never rates above 40 or so. Always knew about Richmond but never heard about Portsmouth either they seem to be doing bad lately too.. Its interesting how the Tidewater accent sound similar to DMV but not Richmond area.
The DMV accent is a Tidewater variant, you can tell thru pronunciations of certain words. And obviously Tidewater is older as an established place than Greater Washington, the phonetics and enunciation come from Southeast Virginia, it's so obvious...
As I stated, I lived in Woodbridge before we moved to Central Virginia; my initial move to the East Coast waa Southwest Washington where my dad worked at the time, but I was only there briefly, never went to school there. I'm a Virginian thru and thru, I got to experience growing up in NoVa and Greater Richmond, and as an adult went back to Richmond and then experience The 757...
Portsmouth is flirting really close to historical highs right now too, I don't think they've hit it yet but they aren't far off, so present day Portsmouth is almost as bad as its ever been. Ironically, Portsmouth in many ways is a larger version of Petersburg---->an impoverished, mostly black city struggling with social health as well as economic...
Richmond though, was always the anomaly of Virginia violence. Until Petersburg hit this run beginning in 2015 no other city here ever posted over 40/100k, and even Norfolk and Portsmouth at their worst were just clearing 30/100k and those numbers can only a handful of times. If you grow up in Virginia with even a passing knowledge of violent crime the news and stories out of Richmond for 40 years, 1967-2007, are legendary. Historically, in the "War On Drugs" era United States, Richmond was easily among the worst cities in the nation. There were other rough areas around The Commonwealth but the scale of violence in Rich was a land of its own, and even today where Rich is twice as safe as it was when many of us were growing up, it still has a unique criminal aura, if you're into measuring those things. I got to spend alot of time in Norfolk, a little in Hampton...
The DMV accent is a Tidewater variant, you can tell thru pronunciations of certain words. And obviously Tidewater is older as an established place than Greater Washington, the phonetics and enunciation come from Southeast Virginia, it's so obvious...
As I stated, I lived in Woodbridge before we moved to Central Virginia; my initial move to the East Coast waa Southwest Washington where my dad worked at the time, but I was only there briefly, never went to school there. I'm a Virginian thru and thru, I got to experience growing up in NoVa and Greater Richmond, and as an adult went back to Richmond and then experience The 757...
Portsmouth is flirting really close to historical highs right now too, I don't think they've hit it yet but they aren't far off, so present day Portsmouth is almost as bad as its ever been. Ironically, Portsmouth in many ways is a larger version of Petersburg---->an impoverished, mostly black city struggling with social health as well as economic...
Richmond though, was always the anomaly of Virginia violence. Until Petersburg hit this run beginning in 2015 no other city here ever posted over 40/100k, and even Norfolk and Portsmouth at their worst were just clearing 30/100k and those numbers can only a handful of times. If you grow up in Virginia with even a passing knowledge of violent crime the news and stories out of Richmond for 40 years, 1967-2007, are legendary. Historically, in the "War On Drugs" era United States, Richmond was easily among the worst cities in the nation. There were other rough areas around The Commonwealth but the scale of violence in Rich was a land of its own, and even today where Rich is twice as safe as it was when many of us were growing up, it still has a unique criminal aura, if you're into measuring those things. I got to spend alot of time in Norfolk, a little in Hampton...
Richmond is different...
Yeah I remember when my sister got married down in Richmond in the late 90's. I used to come down from school in DC and Richmond was bad back then. I remember Church Hill (or some name like that) being a dangerous area. I haven't been back to Richmond in over 20 years but will have to get back for a day/overnight trip at some point.
Just curious, where do you guys pull this data from? I'd like to see the numbers for Raleigh and Durham NC and see how they compare to other cities and to previous years.
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