Which city in HR has the most intact infrastructure from the pre-urban renewal era? (Virginia Beach: how much)

[Kbank007]

The Tidewater area, undoubtedly, lost a significant portion of historical infrastructure during the urban renewal movement in the 1950's and 1960's. Which city, do you believe, retained the urban landscape most between Norfolk, Portsmouth, Hampton and Newport News? I visited Portsmouth yesterday, and I noticed that the downtown/Old Towne area seems to remain intact. Portsmouth reminded me of a small Richmond, VA with the architecture and gritty industrial atmosphere.

[goofy328]

Originally Posted by Kbank007

The Tidewater area, undoubtedly, lost a significant portion of historical infrastructure during the urban renewal movement in the 1950's and 1960's. Which city, do you believe, retained the urban landscape most between Norfolk, Portsmouth, Hampton and Newport News? I visited Portsmouth yesterday, and I noticed that the downtown/Old Towne area seems to remain intact. Portsmouth reminded me of a small Richmond, VA with the architecture and gritty industrial atmosphere.

My understanding is that Norfolk was actually even more dense in the pre-war era than it is now. I'm not sure how much of it is intact, outside of Ghent, but downtown is a completely different place.

Portsmouth, VA actually reminds me a bit more of a much larger version of Harrisonburg or Staunton, or perhaps even downtown Roanoke. You can actually see some of it in the larger towns in West Virginia, such as Huntington or Buckhannon. I do agree about the post-industrial atmosphere, but I've seen much larger cities with that same atmosphere, primarily across the Midwest, so Portsmouth isn't striking to me in that way. Cleveland, OH, for example, has a much, much, larger downtown than Norfolk, much of which is still the same old factory buildings, now turned residential.

Architecturally, HR could have been a lot more interesting if that post-war infrastructure remained. I can tell, from looking at some of the pictures, that it had infrastructure at least on par with Akron and Youngstown. Call me an optimist but I think that Norfolk could be another Pittsburgh, if the City gets its affairs in order. One can always build to old standards, as they have in New York City, and recreate the look and feel of that old architecture.

Virginia has the post-war/post-industrial architecture but seems to have replaced much of it with glass and steel, which seems to be the norm on the East Coast. I doubt that trend will ever be reversed.

[goofy328]

Originally Posted by Kbank007

The Tidewater area, undoubtedly, lost a significant portion of historical infrastructure during the urban renewal movement in the 1950's and 1960's. Which city, do you believe, retained the urban landscape most between Norfolk, Portsmouth, Hampton and Newport News? I visited Portsmouth yesterday, and I noticed that the downtown/Old Towne area seems to remain intact. Portsmouth reminded me of a small Richmond, VA with the architecture and gritty industrial atmosphere.

Long way around it but I would say it is a tie between all of those cities. None of them are suburban to me. Each city is urban in different ways, and each of the neighborhoods in those cities, I've seen in larger cities in the Midwest like Cleveland, Detroit, etc. HR even has a lot of the same urban blight, just not on the profound scale you see in those cities.

There seems to be this pervasive myth going around that Norfolk is the only truly urban city in HR but that is a misnomer, and misinformed. HR is in no ways as suburban as people say that it is, it is only suburban perhaps to standards of NYC metro where you have to compete against 20k or 60k people per square mile. But you are also talking about a populace that is accustomed to dealing with suburban areas that are even more urban than the best HR has to offer, and unless you've experienced that personally, it is a difficult concept to embrace. Most states have cities with suburbs, not Independent Cities, and no one ever wants to talk about this.

The only truly suburban areas around here are perhaps in Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Williamsburg and Suffolk. and they're not really that much different; they may be exurbs in some other MSA but it is not as though you have to drive several miles to get back to an urban area.

[PristineCleanHRVA]

Williamsburg, duh, too easy

[Diff1]

Between Norfolk and Portsmouth, i was looking at some old pics of Norfolk before it was ruined by knocking everything down Norfolk was stacked with rows and beautiful architecture wish it still looked like that!