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@murksiderock what iv'e learned about RVA on citydata is most ppl that have the the strongest opinions on Richmond don't have much actual experience and are pulling thier info from historical events lol
@murksiderock what iv'e learned about RVA on citydata is most ppl that have the the strongest opinions on Richmond don't have much actual experience and are pulling thier info from historical events lol
Lol it's Virginia in general. I swear Virginia is the state on here that posters have the most WRONG opinions on abd they are clear as day when we actually live here abd in the cities these people are misrepresenting...
You listen to people talk about Virginia culture in general they are way hyperbolic and many times flat out wrong, but Virginia's the main state that CD posters want to tell VIRGINIANS what our cities and state is like haha...
There's a similar dynamic with Norfolk and Virginia Beach, there persists this rhetoric of Norfolk as a uniquely urban city; its urban in tiny pockets but is a mostly suburban city. It's not anywhere near as urban as Richmond. Yet people on here correlate the two as equals often; I've lived in both, known people who've lived in both, we've had posters here who've lived in both...
People who prefer Norfolk's attributes as a city won't tell you its as urban a city as Richmond is...
Virginia Beach gets portrayed as this boring suburban tourist town that's a suburb of Norfolk. Virginia Beach is also a mainly suburban city, but has a very large local profile both economically and culturally, and locals of the Southside view them as equals, one of which (Nfk) being the historic urban center. VB also has pockets of urbanity that people won't know about just vacationing in Sandbridge or The Strip, and people passing by won't know that Nfk and VB have many, many neighborhoods that are identical in infrastructure and architecture. It's easier to note Nfk's history and larger urban framework versus VB's history and say "suburb!" when in actuality neither Norfolkians nor Beachers view The Beach as Nfk's suburb...
It's just Virginia, can't count how many times we get told that Richmond is the capital of the Confederacy and has no connection to the Northeast. Some kind of way Richmond, despite geographically being located on the northern half of the East Coast if you split it cleanly in two, somehow the Richmond that is closer to the major Northeastern areas than Southern parallels, somehow Richmond is the picture of Southern...
It's just Virginia, we've been here a long time and it's a CD consistency. I've been here 11 years, posters have come and gone but they maintain these misperceptions of Virginia to degrees more than any other city or state...
In a perfect world I wish people would stop talking about VA on here because some of the opinions can get flagrant on top of already being wrong...
Lol it's Virginia in general. I swear Virginia is the state on here that posters have the most WRONG opinions on abd they are clear as day when we actually live here abd in the cities these people are misrepresenting...
You listen to people talk about Virginia culture in general they are way hyperbolic and many times flat out wrong, but Virginia's the main state that CD posters want to tell VIRGINIANS what our cities and state is like haha...
There's a similar dynamic with Norfolk and Virginia Beach, there persists this rhetoric of Norfolk as a uniquely urban city; its urban in tiny pockets but is a mostly suburban city. It's not anywhere near as urban as Richmond. Yet people on here correlate the two as equals often; I've lived in both, known people who've lived in both, we've had posters here who've lived in both...
People who prefer Norfolk's attributes as a city won't tell you its as urban a city as Richmond is...
Virginia Beach gets portrayed as this boring suburban tourist town that's a suburb of Norfolk. Virginia Beach is also a mainly suburban city, but has a very large local profile both economically and culturally, and locals of the Southside view them as equals, one of which (Nfk) being the historic urban center. VB also has pockets of urbanity that people won't know about just vacationing in Sandbridge or The Strip, and people passing by won't know that Nfk and VB have many, many neighborhoods that are identical in infrastructure and architecture. It's easier to note Nfk's history and larger urban framework versus VB's history and say "suburb!" when in actuality neither Norfolkians nor Beachers view The Beach as Nfk's suburb...
It's just Virginia, can't count how many times we get told that Richmond is the capital of the Confederacy and has no connection to the Northeast. Some kind of way Richmond, despite geographically being located on the northern half of the East Coast if you split it cleanly in two, somehow the Richmond that is closer to the major Northeastern areas than Southern parallels, somehow Richmond is the picture of Southern...
It's just Virginia, we've been here a long time and it's a CD consistency. I've been here 11 years, posters have come and gone but they maintain these misperceptions of Virginia to degrees more than any other city or state...
In a perfect world I wish people would stop talking about VA on here because some of the opinions can get flagrant on top of already being wrong...
Most people have no clue that Richmond is literally a smaller Washington DC.
Lol it's Virginia in general. I swear Virginia is the state on here that posters have the most WRONG opinions on abd they are clear as day when we actually live here abd in the cities these people are misrepresenting...
You listen to people talk about Virginia culture in general they are way hyperbolic and many times flat out wrong, but Virginia's the main state that CD posters want to tell VIRGINIANS what our cities and state is like haha...
There's a similar dynamic with Norfolk and Virginia Beach, there persists this rhetoric of Norfolk as a uniquely urban city; its urban in tiny pockets but is a mostly suburban city. It's not anywhere near as urban as Richmond. Yet people on here correlate the two as equals often; I've lived in both, known people who've lived in both, we've had posters here who've lived in both...
People who prefer Norfolk's attributes as a city won't tell you its as urban a city as Richmond is...
Virginia Beach gets portrayed as this boring suburban tourist town that's a suburb of Norfolk. Virginia Beach is also a mainly suburban city, but has a very large local profile both economically and culturally, and locals of the Southside view them as equals, one of which (Nfk) being the historic urban center. VB also has pockets of urbanity that people won't know about just vacationing in Sandbridge or The Strip, and people passing by won't know that Nfk and VB have many, many neighborhoods that are identical in infrastructure and architecture. It's easier to note Nfk's history and larger urban framework versus VB's history and say "suburb!" when in actuality neither Norfolkians nor Beachers view The Beach as Nfk's suburb...
It's just Virginia, can't count how many times we get told that Richmond is the capital of the Confederacy and has no connection to the Northeast. Some kind of way Richmond, despite geographically being located on the northern half of the East Coast if you split it cleanly in two, somehow the Richmond that is closer to the major Northeastern areas than Southern parallels, somehow Richmond is the picture of Southern...
It's just Virginia, we've been here a long time and it's a CD consistency. I've been here 11 years, posters have come and gone but they maintain these misperceptions of Virginia to degrees more than any other city or state...
In a perfect world I wish people would stop talking about VA on here because some of the opinions can get flagrant on top of already being wrong...
For Norfolk/VA Beach - knowing the history of the city's formation definitely helps. VA Beach is basically a county (Princess Anne) that become a "city" (Thanks to VA's weird incorporation law no less) through merger, of course it's mostly suburban. That being said I do agree that Norfolk outside of that area around MacArthur Center gets suburban quickly also. Then people often just ignore Portsmouth across the river which is somewhat urban (although also largely suburban).
As far as RVA - if anything the area from Fan District and further west feels no different than a nice DC or Baltimore neighborhood, while areas like Church Hill feels the same as some not as great Baltimore neighborhood (Not as rundown as the area is somewhat gentrified). But hey, people say Baltimore is a southern city also...
Most people have no clue that Richmond is literally a smaller Washington DC.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ion475
For Norfolk/VA Beach - knowing the history of the city's formation definitely helps. VA Beach is basically a county (Princess Anne) that become a "city" (Thanks to VA's weird incorporation law no less) through merger, of course it's mostly suburban. That being said I do agree that Norfolk outside of that area around MacArthur Center gets suburban quickly also. Then people often just ignore Portsmouth across the river which is somewhat urban (although also largely suburban).
As far as RVA - if anything the area from Fan District and further west feels no different than a nice DC or Baltimore neighborhood, while areas like Church Hill feels the same as some not as great Baltimore neighborhood (Not as rundown as the area is somewhat gentrified). But hey, people say Baltimore is a southern city also...
100% to both of you...
For people to objectively relate or even compare both Rich and DC culturally they'd have to acknowledge both the aire of southern-ness that is in DC, and the connectivity between DC and Rich that links bits and strands of culture in both cities; two characteristics that are heavily downplayed on this board---->in my opinion because most people don't know the cities that well, or what they're looking at in both. Certainly, given that Richmond isn't a major city on a national scale, it's a city that most people are going to be less familiar with, and it's easy to just look for things online that fit one's bias...
I don't think anyone is saying that, it's just that the thread is comparing Richmond to Austin, which doesn't "feel" southern much at all. Austin had like 3000 people when the Civil War broke out and it's for the most part a city built in the 20th century as Texas' demographics and economy drifted away from the southeast.
To me Baltimore vs. Austin would be very debatable also, and I personally feel that Baltimore is the more (culturally) southern of the two, but I'm sure it's a matter of perspective.
If you replace southern with "Sun Belt", then it's Austin all the way, obviously. But most of the "Sun Belt" qualities have nothing to do with Southern culture, which I assume is what the thread is referring to.
I don't think anyone is saying that, it's just that the thread is comparing Richmond to Austin, which doesn't "feel" southern much at all. Austin had like 3000 people when the Civil War broke out and it's for the most part a city built in the 20th century as Texas' demographics and economy drifted away from the southeast.
To me Baltimore vs. Austin would be very debatable also, and I personally feel that Baltimore is the more (culturally) southern of the two, but I'm sure it's a matter of perspective.
If you replace southern with "Sun Belt", then it's Austin all the way, obviously. But most of the "Sun Belt" qualities have nothing to do with Southern culture, which I assume is what the thread is referring to.
I live in Baltimore area now and used to live in Austin...
Baltimore "southern-ness" comes from its people - the African-Americans move there from the south during Great Migration, and the white people are often from the Appalachia (Both event happens circa 1950s/1960s when Baltimore was a lot better economically). The city itself is otherwise feels more like Philadelphia than the south.
As for Austin - the large amount of Hispanics is what prevent it from being truly "South" especially nowaday but rather more "Southwest". At times even Houston feels more "southern" than Austin...
I live in Baltimore area now and used to live in Austin...
Baltimore "southern-ness" comes from its people - the African-Americans move there from the south during Great Migration, and the white people are often from the Appalachia (Both event happens circa 1950s/1960s when Baltimore was a lot better economically). The city itself is otherwise feels more like Philadelphia than the south.
As for Austin - the large amount of Hispanics is what prevent it from being truly "South" especially nowaday but rather more "Southwest". At times even Houston feels more "southern" than Austin...
I think we are on the same page here, the people in Baltimore are a bit more southern in culture than the people in Austin in my opinion. I think the focus on the built form is a little unfair, as the south does have other traditional urban cities like New Orleans and to a lesser extent Charleston and Savannah, and the sun belt style city is even more prevalent in the western US than it is in the south. That difference is more old vs. new than it is north vs. south. But that said, obviously Baltimore has a ton of northeastern elements, and I wouldn't call it southern overall.
I'd have the south starting somewhere in Virginia and ending somewhere in east Texas. I believe Austin is west of that line and Baltimore north of it, but I'm not exactly sure with Richmond. In any case, we're really splitting hairs here.
I think we are on the same page here, the people in Baltimore are a bit more southern in culture than the people in Austin in my opinion. I think the focus on the built form is a little unfair, as the south does have other traditional urban cities like New Orleans and to a lesser extent Charleston and Savannah, and the sun belt style city is even more prevalent in the western US than it is in the south. That difference is more old vs. new than it is north vs. south. But that said, obviously Baltimore has a ton of northeastern elements, and I wouldn't call it southern overall.
I'd have the south starting somewhere in Virginia and ending somewhere in east Texas. I believe Austin is west of that line and Baltimore north of it, but I'm not exactly sure with Richmond. In any case, we're really splitting hairs here.
For Virginia I believe the classic definition of truly "southern" part would be Southside, which is defined as south of James River. Richmond by that definition would be right on the line (i.e. southern half of the city along with Chesterfield Co is "southern" while northern half and Henrico Co is "northern").
Personally I would move the line down to Appomattox River i.e. the southern border of Chesterfield Co. Of course that means Colonial Heights is somehow more "northern" than Petersburg VA and Hopewell...
But either way the line where the south "start" is definitely closer to RVA than it's to Austin, which is like 200mi (minimum) away from East Texas (i.e. the Piney Wood region). Houston would be the major city on the periphery, and Houston metro area does have its "southern" part in the eastern part of metro i.e. Liberty County.
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