What Norfolk Needs to Be a Place Worth Living In
Words Lennie Araujo
Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 at 10:01 am
When I took a job in the area two and a half years ago, we knew it was out-of-the question for us to live anywhere else than in downtown Norfolk.
Photo | Matt Davis
You see, my partner Colin and I moved here from New York City. We had to live in the most urban area we could find, therefore downtown was the logical–the only!–alternative. While it took some doing to make new acquaintances, we quickly realized that culturally, downtown Norfolk is already a ways towards achieving its full potential. This is thanks in part to its advantageous setting, proximity to the water and history. But mostly, it’s thanks to visionary business owners and locals who want to have a more urban lifestyle.
Nevertheless, while downtown Norfolk does offer many attractions, it’s clear that the arts and culture scene is heavily targeted to either people in their 40s and older (the Chrysler, the Opera, and the Symphony) or children (Hurrah Players, the Children’s Museum; and skate parks, anyone?). Both groups are vital to Norfolk’s continued growth, but the demographic between is clearly short of options (other than the bar scene and the NorVa). Having so few affordable places to rent increases the divide. People of this generation do not feel they have ownership of downtown.
Nightlife aside, there are a few simple improvements that could make the neighborhood more appealing: bike lanes, for instance, and dog parks (the great social interactive tool!). The bike path as it exists is quite pathetic really; it makes it very difficult to travel between Town Point Park, Freemason, Plum Point Park and West Ghent. Signage and trails vanish and reappear (if they even do) with no logic. Pedestrian-cycling bridges and bike lanes would encourage our neighbors to live fitter, less selfishly and more environmentally conscious.
Then there is Waterside.
The potential for Waterside represents a long-range joint planning strategy. Geographically, the downtown area is surrounded by water–Norfolk was laid out as a “Half Moon town” in the 1600s–and we need to get acquainted (or re-acquainted) with our waterfront. Waterside should include mixed uses with performers, artist studios, a farmer’s market, a brewery, better restaurants, and indoor and outdoor public space. It’s still perceived as a place for special events not everyday use. When I go running there early in the morning I rarely see another soul. The newly renovated Town Point Park and its marina, the Elizabeth River ferry, Nauticus, and riverfront hotels and residences are vital and should be integral parts of the waterfront. Together they would create continuity and potentially attract hundreds of bikers, walkers, and joggers a day.
Waterside
Recent successful examples in other cities encourage me to believe that the establishment of a Riverwalk and trail system–such as Vancouver’s Seawalk–would be crucial to the success of Waterside’s rise to be one of the premier urban areas in the East Coast. Destination places such as Boston’s Quincy Market-Faneuil Hall, New York’s South Street Seaport or Baltimore’s Inner Harbor are also great examples of what could be applied at Waterside. With the right balance of uses and attractions it could bring hundreds of residents, workers, conventioneers and tourists at lunch time, after work and on weekends.
The venue should also be an integral part of the park and vice versa. Especially important will be to coordinate with Festevents so that festivals and the festival marketplace feed from each other and have an energetic flow. I was delighted to see Festevents improvements and plans for Town Point Park implemented. But we are not there yet. I think there could be even greater opportunities to include public art, programmed activities for all ages, places for public events and performers, and a sense of safety that creates a positive playing environment. This could start with “opening up” the space to its surroundings and bringing quality businesses and venues into the mix.
Downtown Norfolk primarily caters to three kinds of demographics, for now: 1| Single young professionals/military personnel. 2| Young couples with no children seeking a more culturally and socially vibrant environment. 3| Retirees that want to live somewhere with facilities in easy reach.
The planned light rail stops just feet away from Waterside will place the venue in a prime position, and we have to take advantage of this opportunity. It needs to re-connect to the city grid. It needs to entice people to come to the water. The new MacArthur light rail station–if designed properly–could start to create a new synergy in downtown to connect with Waterside.
Richard Florida, who predicted The Rise of the Creative Class in his now-famous and often-quoted book of the same name, now says that where you live is the most important decision you’ll ever make. In his latest book, Who’s Your City, he asks, “If someone asked you to list life’s biggest decisions, what would you say? The place we choose to live affects every aspect of our being. It can determine the income we earn, the people we meet, the friends we make, the partners we choose, and the options available to children and families. People are not equally happy everywhere, and some places do a better job of providing a high quality of life than others. Some places offer us more vibrant labor markets, better career prospects, higher real estate appreciation, and stronger investment and earnings opportunities. Some places offer more promising mating markets. Others are better environments for raising children.” His point is, where we live is a central life factor that affects all the others—work, education, and love. It can make or break existing work arrangements and personal relationships. And it can also open new doors.
Earlier this year I was very encouraged by a dynamic conversation started by the Greater Norfolk Corporation. A bunch of us got together to informally talk about our views (and wishes) for Downtown Norfolk. We said we’d like to see our restaurants open from brunch to lunch on Saturdays. There are no places to take our out-of-town guests for lunch on a weekend unless you go to the mall, which you can do anywhere in the country. And do not get me started on the crimes being committed towards architecture here. [Kirn Library (R.I.P.) was a nicely scaled example of mid-century modern architecture and went down completely unappreciated by the city.] Still, all of us who attended were excited about the possibilities and the dialogue started.
Recently another bunch of like-minded people has gotten together to forward a vision for Norfolk as a more vibrant place to live. re:Vision Norfolk seeks to engage the creative community. I trust we are on the right track (I am part of the group), and that this energy will ultimately attract and retain more people here.
Virginia is known as the “Old Dominion.” It’s time to change that: Norfolk should now strive to be a “New Dominion,” a place of change and new ideas.
Placemaking is the art and science of people. Not only does where we live affect who we are; who we are, what we do and how we do it affect the place where we live. Ultimately, this community has to be engaged if it is to flourish. If we can, our vision to make downtown Norfolk a place that will attract the young–and young at heart–can easily be a reality. We can open new doors for new venues, and be a place people want to be part of. A place to walk your dog and meet your neighbors, take a stroll and check out bookstores and music stores, catch an art show or a glass of wine at a cool new bar. In other words, a better, more attractive and more sustainable Norfolk.
Lennie Araujo is an architect, urban planner and a resident of downtown Norfolk. This article (with a few ideas from Colin Ginks) originated as a piece for the Downtown Norfolk Civic League’s Spring Newsletter, 2009 and has since been expanded.""
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Lennie Araujo is an architect, urban planner and resident of Norfolk.
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I will live in your Norfolk anytime.
Hugs and kisses to Mr. Araujo for a well written article. He is spot on, let’s listen to what he has to say!!!
Hmm, so in “Who’s your City” Richard Florida pretty much outlines that Hampton Roads isn’t much of a destination.
It’s overpriced. Housing is way out of line with the incomes. Look at what you get for the money in Raleigh. Better architecture. More variety. Basements.
Lack of great companies. Most of the gov’t contractor type jobs are boring. Sorry to say it. They tend to be full of run of the mill people that aren’t excited about what they do. There are of course exceptions. But the jobs are limiting, and are likely to drive away the good folks.
The startups haven’t been great. Look at big cities and the young people have been rewarded by success, and have gone on to start new companies. In Hampton Roads the attitude is young people should come in at the bottom and be paid little. In other areas upon success the money has been reinvested to start more companies. Hampton Roads has had little of this success. Most of the money is handed down generationally. Yes, there are exceptions, but compare it to other areas. The best way to make money here is by getting it from the gov’t. The biggest young successes here have been held by rappers selling out their community with violent music. Not too much else.
NOTHING HAPPENS HERE. It’s a boring town. Sure there is the normal arts that you find in every city (Symphony Opera Plays). Breakdancers on the street are quick to be run out. The graffiti artists vandalize with the worst stuff ever, they can’t even impress. There is no public access TV. Landmark tried with HamptonRoads.TV but the submissions were thin.
Downtown Norfolk strives to be a retirement home. People crying about the music (when it’s stuff they don’t like). Crime is fairly high, but that’s because of the low income housing on one side. Sure you have your bar scene, but honestly one could wrap up everything in downtown Norfolk in a few weekends.
I don’t buy it. I think the area expanded due to the housing bubble and looked like it was going to grow into something big. But the people didn’t change. And now that the excitement of insane amounts of free money to all the property owners is gone, I’m not sure there will be much expansion. The area is not the type (as outlined by the book, I’m still working on Rise of the Creative Class but read Who’s your city a few months ago) that really caters to the young and hip. There is nothing that has happened in downtown Norfolk that hasn’t happened in every similar city. They’re all full of overpriced condos and apartments, and most of them probably have those bizarre neighborhoods in the suburbs where the entire thing is like a life marketed to the buyer. Eat sleep and live in the product, just sign for the 40 year mortgage.
Done ranting. Feel free to tear me up folks!
Amen! This place blows, and I can’t wait to leave!
If it’s possible to bring Waterside back from hospice, this is the first draft of its treatment. Hear, hear!
I’m pumped up and ready to get organized… AltDaily, I hope you will take up the cause by letting your readers know where we can get involved.
Fantastic article Lennie!
I have been reading “The Rise of the Creative Class” myself. Other progressive cities such as Washington DC are presently are addressing many of these earmarks for economic growth in their cities – such as paying attention to “The Gay Index” by having an LGBT Liaison office within the Mayor’s Cabinet, among many other efforts.
I would rather hear those who believe in Hampton Roads talk about demanding change and getting involved at local city levels – rather than talk about our town being boring. It is true, our arts are lacking, we have close minded people running some of these towns.
Hampton Roads has the basic foundation to BECOME a phenomenal, artistic, technology advanced area… time to meet with our mayors, city councilmen and Hampton Roads Economic Development Alliance (HREDA) to put things in motion to get there. I plan to.
N.
Yes, but you must remember this, the people running the cities. It’s their cities. Many have ties to the ruling class. It’s not in their interest to have other people rising up with great amounts of wealth, it would threaten their position and power.
HREDA is funded to bring large taxpaying companies to the region. The HRTC / HRTI is more of the incubator group. One thing often forgotten about the company relocation thing, is there is often huge benefits to being located elsewhere.
Don’t think I’m just about about whining on message forums, I just got back from creeping around 21st street and all that looking for potential commercial places to put an incubator that friends and myself are working to start. But like most things, it’s difficult here because the property owners want quite a bit of money, even though the junk properties are long paid for, in pretty bad condition and have been vacant for a long time. They don’t understand that America is failing and the “good times” aren’t likely to really come back anytime soon, unless there is another mania bubble, which will result in a worse crash down the road. Our leadership is no good, and that is in both government and corporate.
Very prescient observations and well-written article, Lennie. Thank you.
I certainly agree with your sentiments here.
One item to take issue with you said early on: “it’s clear that the arts and culture scene is heavily targeted to either people in their 40s and older (the Chrysler, the Opera, and the Symphony).”
Huh??? Since when did the symphony and the opera and the Chrysler museum become for “old people”??? I am 44 so i guess that includes me. LOL
Hey…I go out to nightclubs and the NorVa too.
But I have also been going to the Symphony since I was 20.
“Arts and culture ‘scene’ is heavily targeted to….” That is a nonsensical statement.
Puccini’s La Boheme targets NO ONE…neither does Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. They exist as the masterpieces they are.
And every piece of art at the Chrysler Museum speaks for itself too.
No one is “targeted.” There is no “target audience.”
Yeah its true that when you go to these events you see alot of blue hair and bald heads..
Perhaps its because these folks have been around long enough to evolve and gain an appreciation for the fine arts.
So….listen to your elders:
The Symphony, the Opera, and the Art Museum, all need your support.
But YOU also need them.
You just don’t know it yet. ;-)
Or maybe you do: Architecture is frozen music. :-)
Yeah…I thought so….you do.
To all of the young folks in America: When you were a kid, you tasted wine maybe and thought “eww gross”.
Then you grew up and ACQUIRED a taste for fine wine.
The fine ARTS are the same way: You have to acquire a taste. But once you do, you will be hooked.
So DIVE into the arts now, while you are young….because one day, diving into a mosh pit will get really old, really quick LOL.
Sorry for that digression, Lennie…I know that’s not what you meant.
But the Arts are for EVERYBODY.
Chris
Norfolk, VA
Well said!
It pains me to pay to support any arts that involve Ticketmaster :-/
“a brewery” on it… will and urban winery suffice? I’m going to re-read this tomorrow.
So many other things could be done with the energy, exuberance, and impatience of youth than whining about and bemoaning what your mom and dad and grandparents did or did not do (of course, you did not mean your own)…if downtown Norfolk is not urban enough, is so lacking in amenities that appeal to the hip…leaves the hip having to suffer the unfit, selfish, and environmentally unaware stodgie masses…by all means go to Raleigh or where ever else you perceive the grass to be hipper…community is not about bike and jogging paths, dog parks, or cool hook up joints…go spend an afternoon at a local facility for the elderly…befriend a blue hair and listen to her story take her out to supper…mentor at an after school program at Norview, get involved with a literacy program for that “other half” in public housing or the Norfolk jail or the Union Mission…bring joy to a child at St Mary’s Infant Home in any of a dozen simple ways…these may not be places with really cool ambience, but you will be too busy to notice or whine about the lack thereof…oh, and the latest…while you may look really alluring trotting along side a Chocolate Lab or English Bulldog…and you may be contributing to this sad economy by feeding Fido Science Diet and purchasing him a really darling Halloween costume…such pampered pets leave an incredibly hugh carbon foot print…Good Grief! Bring it…
I think you’re reading a lot ugly things that simply aren’t there.
You’re assuming the people who want MORE for this town don’t do the things you mention. Many of them do!
Your comment was just as hateful as what you are imagining is in the hearts of the people you attack.
Pot. Meet Kettle.
The language that I chose came directly from the article and from the comments…language that sets up ‘us versus them’…I did forget to respond to the comment…”This place blows.”
if you who find downtown Norfolk so lacking…wish for a revolution…cannot see that what you say is an attack, does offend, and does dismiss people who have spent their lives here and invested those lives in developing community and building a good place to live…and Norfolk is ‘a place worth living in’ damnit…your comments demean those lives well spent as well as the pesky military transients…your language smacks of elitism…of a view that is so ‘enligtened’ that it dismisses a lot of folks…I do apologize for the whining comment…when attacked, and this sounds exactly like an attack…hometown folks become defensive…of course Norfolk could be better…do you know any place that could not be…but better at the expense of folks who live here because they choose to?…how about partnerships and lives actively invested in all aspects of community instead of the rhetoric of war and revolution and take over aimed at people who have made Norfolk a really great place to live…I am reminded of an old song…’please come to Boston…she said no…there ain’t no gold…and there ain’t nobody like me…’ …but yall go on if you want to…I’m going to see Stevie Wonder…
Hey Chris,
Just to clarify; I did not mean that the arts, most certainly not the Opera or the synphony, are for “old” people! I myself am up there with you and I have also, attended wonderful opera, synphonic performances and a lot of seriuos theater all my adult life. All I meant is the way things are “packaged” here…In fact we have talks with the re:Vision folks about trying to entice the younger folks to a events such as art gallery hoping, etc. and we hope to manage to get several of the downtown galleries and art organizations excited and get goong soon…
So much potential — and so little imagination. Norfolk could encourage young artists by allowing them to sell their paintings and pottery along the fence around the Douglas MacArthur Memorial. Saturday night could be a weekly bnlock party in downtown just by closing off the Granby Street to traffic. (There are lots of garages on adjoining streets.) There are bike racks in city garages but you’d never know it because there are no signs. The city literally “ran” the Elizabeth River Run, a very popular foot race, out of town to Portsmouth, eliminating one daytime event that brought people out of their homes, away from the TV, and put them on the sidewalks and streets. Out of one side of the mouth comes “We want to be cool” and out of the other side comes “We don’t want that.” Progress will come but in spite of our city fathers and mothers.
I really see that there’s a core of people who ‘get it’ and some that would rather pack up and go somewhere else. I encourage the latter group to leave. I think what this community needs is more examples of progressive groups and businesses that break the mold. But I feel like the problem is the support systems that helps those progressive new businesses and groups thrive around here is absent. The people who can foster a better community, just plain old, don’t want to, don’t care to. They’re fine with making money on transient dollars. Someone needs to make an impact. I have faith in it. An interesting start would be to organize.. maybe Norfolk 30 under 30 club and start the revolution? I’m one of those people who can imagine what it could be… but I struggle with where to start and how to be remarkable to people who don’t ‘get it’.
Lucien,
I like the way you think – someone – some group, some people like us need to make an impact. I have faith in it too. The dynamic of the area is changing – this is certain. I am not under 30… but if we show enough numbers, organize our thoughts, unify, get things on paper, build alliances with incubator & city groups one at a time, change will happen, slowly but surely.
I’m for a 30 and under club, but without an age limit! (If that sounds like Yogi Berra, so be it.) I don’t think it’s afunction of chronological age as it is one of spirit and energy. Sign me up for the revolution. When and where do we meet?
Yeah, I hate the idea of making a group that immediately excludes people.
“RE:Vision Norfolk” is the new group that is targeting those young professionals and creative class who want to start a dialogue on ways to improve the area and act on it. And there are not age requirements. Exciting stuff! The next meeting is Nov 2nd at 6pm in Towne Bank’s community room (Downtown Norfolk on Main St.)
Thanks Will!
I meant to say “no age requirements.”
Targeting them for what? To extract all their money? Gonna build the young professionals more overpriced housing and restaurants?
And for those that say “If you don’t like it here, leave.” Well I can give you a long list of people who have done that and have great stories of success and will be quick to tell you “Man I’m glad I left.” Many DO leave.
Thanks, Will. I’ll be there.
Lenny,
Thanks for the thought provoking story. I see you are an architect, so you probably have some experience with city planning. I wish you had commented on population density here in Norfolk, and how it compares to some of the places you would like city planners to emulate. Norfolk has a population density of 4000/sq mile. In Boston, it’s 12,000/sq mile. Could this be why you don’t see runners in Town Point Park or restaurants open for lunch on weekends? There are only 3700 people living in downtown! It seems to me like a chicken and egg issue. What comes first, urban vibrancy or urban density. Seems like you need vibrancy to attract people, but you need density to create vibrancy. I think locals should be focused on entrepreneurship and creating job opportunities that will lead to higher population density. I think the city should create incentives for building a dense downtown community. Separate from this the city should focus on lifting up communities like Park Place. For every dog park or bike trail built for the upwardly mobile, a community garden or revitalization project should be implemented in our blighted neighborhoods.
Roberto…your ideas are right on…
I used to live in Norfolk & I really miss it… I live near by though & spend most of my free time there… my daughters love it too… I believe it has a great mix of activities for people with or without children.
I have been searching for Mr Murphy’s contact info so I can get involved with Re:Vision Norfolk. Any help out there??? If so send contact info to me.Thanks!!!
I’m looking at Norfolk for a possible relocation for myself and my husband and two kids. We are both artists (I’m a writer, he’s a visual artist/turned Dr. entering his radiology residency). I liked your piece and wonder what else is happening in Norfolk along the lines you laid out. Any good news to report?
e.