Cleveland.com reporter Stephen Koff comes to Richmond now and then to visit family. And he likes it, he really likes it:
Reminders of its rebel-with-refinements history abound, including the lovely Monument Avenue, a boulevard of shade trees, beautiful old homes and, in the middle of the road, towering statues memorializing Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis. The late Arthur Ashe, a Richmond son and the first black man to win at Wimbledon, is honored here, too, but his monument didn’t come without a little controversy.
Yet there is another side to Richmond that visitors often don’t see, even though they’re awfully close if they’re driving down Monument.
Richmond has a hip, urbane side.
Well, at least the Fan and Carytown areas. Some good namedropping in there, too. His passing remark on the weirdness of RVA’s “crime and homelessness”. Quick research shows the Cleveland area with more than 20,000 homeless (PDF) while Richmond had just under 1,200. So it’s not all that weird. Just awkward for it to be fairly centralized and on top of VCU.