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Read
it and weep. I’m a 22-year-old college graduate
with an ambition of becoming a journalist and dreams
of starting my own publication one day -- an edgy
mag on current events. I
won’t rule out the possibility of coming home at
some point, but right now my goal in life is to get
out of Richmond and see the world. And there are a lot
of twenty-
somethings just like me. Can you say,
"brain drain?"
I’ve
wanted to leave ever since I was old enough to think for myself.
During my angst-ridden teen years, I was bitter and
disgruntled, and I hated school. Everyone looked
the same. Boys wore the same
uniform – collared shirt, khaki pants, leather
belt, brown loafers – and
girls dressed just like their mothers. To set myself
apart, I dressed in gothic black.
After
the purgatory of high school, I enrolled at Virginia
Commonwealth University
with the idea of majoring in fashion. VCU offered a
more diverse student body than my prep school did,
though 90 percent of my friends came from Richmond
or the surrounding area. We all wanted out. We used to call
our home town the
“black hole” for its gravitational pull, which
dragged back people who’d escaped as far away as California.
After
two years, I transferred to the University of Miami,
in Florida, to finish college with a degree in
English literature. It wasn't Richmond.
South
Beach
was a 24-hour bustle of the beautiful, the ugly,
the rich, the poor, the crazy, the sane, and some of
the phat-est cars you have ever seen.
The
streets were lined with billboards of blondes with
enormous breasts that boasted of plastic surgery --
which might have distracted one's driving if the
traffic actually moved. Half the radio stations were
in Spanish. Miami seemed less a part of the United
States than a hub that connected us to Latin
America.
By
graduation, I
longed for Richmond. I
missed the fall: sitting outside Shockoe Espresso,
bundled up with a hot chocolate, watching the train
of SUVs rumbled down the cobblestone streets. I
missed browsing at Carytown Books while cats ran
through the store and draped themselves over the
window manikin. I missed striking up amiable
conversations about the weather with just about
anyone. Richmond, I realized, was a very comfortable
place to live.
But
I've
been back in town three months now -- long enough to
take a breather and organize a move to New York City
-- and already I'm getting antsy. Maybe there was
more to my dissatisfaction
than adolescent hormonal imbalance. I'm looking for
something more, and I'm pretty sure I won't find it
here. Most of my friends feel the same way.
I
never imagined
that my opinions would matter to the big
wigs who run the political, business and civic
institutions of
Richmond.
But, then, until I took on this writing assignment
for Bacon's Rebellion, I'd never heard of Richard
Florida or his book, The Rise of the Creative Class.
While I was frolicking on the beaches of Miami in January, Florida
visited Richmond
to explain his theory that a region’s economic
prosperity is directly linked to its ability to
retain and recruit members of what he calls the
“creative class”.
According
to Florida, members
of the creative class -- including artists,
scientists and entrepreneurs -- are defined by their
ability to innovate "new forms or designs that
are readily transferable and widely useful."
Creative people thrive in proximity to other
creative people, and they tend to cluster in
communities characterized by cultural diversity,
openness to outsiders and a vibrant quality of life
-- street life, café culture, arts, music and
people engaging in outdoor activities.
Influential
Richmonders responded to Florida’s
theories with interest. There was a widespread
sense that Richmond
needed
a kick-start, but no one was sure where to plant
their loafers. How could they find out, someone asked,
what creative
people liked and disliked about Richmond? Start by
asking the young people graduating from college, suggested
Florida.
Florida
was talking about us -- the youth, the
rising generation! As corny as it sounds, we are
the future. It's about time someone paid attention!
Taking
up the challenge, I interviewed a dozen recent
college graduates, to find out what they think about
Richmond, and how likely they were to stay and build
a future here. The good news: My peers agree that
Richmond is brimming with potential, citing its
history, pleasant ambience and the presence of
VCU. By and large, they agreed with the city's
advertising slogan pitching Richmond as "easy
to love." On the downside, they said the city
falls short in many ways, blaming bureaucracy, an
oppressively conservative culture, and an insular community leadership.
If
there's one thing that college grads appreciate
about Richmond, it's what Richard Florida refers to
as "authenticity, a strong sense of place: “historical buildings,
established neighborhoods, a unique music scene or
specific cultural attributes, ... urban grit alongside
renovated buildings, ... the commingling of young
and old, long-time neighborhood characters and
yuppies, fashion models and ‘bag ladies.'"
The
people I spoke to cite Richmond's heritage as the
former capital of the Confederacy and its success at
preserving its stock of historic buildings. At the
same time, they approve of the city's progress at
cleaning up its grungier neighborhoods, in
particular VCU's expansion into neighboring blocks.
Richmond’s
established neighborhoods, from the Fan to Church
Hill, Windsor Farms to Mooreland Farms,
Goochland to Varina, are extensive and varied. Each
is distinct, housing everyone from “good ole boys” to punks, and everything in
between. While Richmond
is not “high brow” enough to have fashion models
cat-walking through the city streets, its
neighborhoods do harbor characters, like the
jovial artist Mr.
Happy and the cross-dressing entertainer, Dirt
Woman.
As
a midsized Southern city, Richmond also is an easy
place to live. It’s affordable and
the locals still believe in the value of a smile and southern
hospitality. As
expressed in the jingle in New Rock radio station Y 101.1,
"Summer is comfortable in Richmond.”
College
grads appreciate how far you can stretch a dollar
and the range of activities with which to fill your
non-working hours: from bar hopping to white-water
rafting. Says Boz
Boschen, who grew up in Richmond and attends Saint
Lawrence University in New York:
“Living in Richmond
is like living with a large extended family. Richmonders are not strangers; they are
simply friends you haven’t met yet.”
But
"nice" falls short of
"exciting." As Elbe J. d'Oliveira, a VCU
student who works as a disk jockey while
finishing his studies, puts it: “I want to put my education to work”, he
explains. New
York City
is his
ideal. “It has everything from great theater to a hooker with coke -- it has everything.”
d'Oliveira's point is not that he is enamored with drug-abusing prostitutes, but that
the city has so many
options.
While
Richmond
has its share of diversity, stagnation and
close-mindedness are the most noted stains on the
city’s reputation. Call it small minded, country minded, or backward. Many
young people agree with the observation of one
recent grad that, “Richmond
would have been better if during the Civil War it
had been burned to the ground … [and given] a
chance to start over.”
Others
complain that there's plenty of wealth in Richmond,
but accessing it to start a new business is all but
impossible for anyone from outside the closed
circle. They also question community priorities,
which seem to be set by a handful of dominant
personalities like the Ukrops brothers, leaders of Richmond's
home-town, "pseudo-religious mob" who,
among other accomplishments, chased shock jock
Howard Stern off the Richmond airwaves.
Young
people are largely indifferent to the "high art
triumvirate" of symphony, orchestra and ballet. Despite
declining attendance figures and aging demographics
for the SOBs, as Florida calls them, Richmond's establishment is trying to raise money
for $100 million performing arts center. Recent
college grads would prefer to see community funds
fuel youth-focused attractions like the local music
scene.
If Richmond is to become attractive to members of the
creative class, the movers and shakers should bag
gargantuan projects like the performing arts centers and
new sports stadium and begin thinking, to quote Florida,
how to create "an eco-system or habitat in
which multidimensional forms of creativity take root
and flourish."
One
place to start would be relaxing some
traditions. Richmond
businesses should alter their dress code to
incorporate more creative, less conformist
employees, implement same-sex partner benefits so as
not to alienate any segment of society, and
restructure office spaces to persuade ideas to flow
rather than hit dead ends against “soul
blistering” cubicle walls.
As Florida
says, “Talented people defy classification based
on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual preference or
appearance." They do not wear uniforms or work in
boxes.
I
couldn't agree more.
As
for me, I still plan on moving to
New
York City
this fall. It's a place, a family friend warns me, that
will “serve me my
ass." I
am not without fear, but I dream of living where I
can stroll down the street, café con leche in
hand, and within two blocks pass a heated street basketball game, a
renowned jazz hangout, and a tea shop run by a Brit
who proudly displays his patriotism on his buzzed
head, dyed like the U.K.
flag. Hey,
if I can make it in NYC, I can make it anywhere. If I can’t, I can always come
home to Richmond.
--
July 28, 2003
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