Growth of Norfolk

[Telmnstr]

Norfolk has grown in terms of expensive new buildings.

So what if the population has gone down, hopefully it's the bad element.

Uncontrolled growth is not a good thing.

[lammius]

Norfolk really needs to focus on making their neighborhoods feel attractive and important within the city. Seriously, there should be a focus for neighborhood pride and city pride there. Norfolk needs to have that attitude that there is a difference between living in Hampton Roads and Norfolk. Any city that you can think of in this country usually has that attitude, living in the suburbs of Chicago is almost Chicago, but it still isnt Chicago. Norfolk needs to create that vibe for itself and that has to happen through its residents.

[usermel]

Wow, great article from 4 and a half years ago. Positive info on Norfolk and shows we should see the glass half full and be patient. Growth will come in due time! Im ok with were Norfolk is now due to all the city has endured! L.G.N.M

[varider]

Wow, great article from 4 and a half years ago. Positive info on Norfolk and shows we should see the glass half full and be patient. Growth will come in due time! Im ok with were Norfolk is now due to all the city has endured! L.G.N.M

[usermel]

Yeah, we have made positive steps! Patience is key for us. Charlotte and Atlanta took time to get were they are as well as the rise of other NC cities! Norfolk is headed in the right direction. Light Rail isnt put in any city. Typically they are placed in growing cities and established cities as well. Not many cities/metros get light rail unless the population and growth makes sense. I think they always do whats being done here due to the future more so than the present state of a city. Norfolk will surge after these projects are complete. The Westin is key though! We are living during a resurgence of Norfolk.

Going to Kincaids is exciting and to downtown in general has a pulse now when I was a teen like you Varider, that wasnt the case at all. Unless it was Harborfest or a special event, Norfolk was dead unless you worked there you werent downtown! These are good times for Norfolk! Im proud of were the city is now. Great thread here!!! L.G.N.M

[varider]

I think the next transportation project for the city is to connect downtown to Ghent/West Ghent/ODU via streetcar/LRT. The Ghent area is so densely populated and has the building density and activity of a big city neighborhood. A streetcar connecting ODU/Ghent to DT just like the olden days would do wonders for the continued redevelopment of the city & the urbanization of ODU.. & would obviously relieve traffic on city streets. As for the route?? I have no idea.. all I know is that it needs to hit Old Dominion and connect at the Medical Center LRT station.

[urbanlife]

I think the next transportation project for the city is to connect downtown to Ghent/West Ghent/ODU via streetcar/LRT. The Ghent area is so densely populated and has the building density and activity of a big city neighborhood. A streetcar connecting ODU/Ghent to DT just like the olden days would do wonders for the continued redevelopment of the city & the urbanization of ODU.. & would obviously relieve traffic on city streets. As for the route?? I have no idea.. all I know is that it needs to hit Old Dominion and connect at the Medical Center LRT station.

[rusthebuss]

Need real leadership in our city....they are happy with being subpar

[varider]

When will the City of Norfolk take action to expand the downtown/central business district/center city/ urban core, whatever the heck we want to call it across St.Paul's Boulevard and Brambleton Avenue? As urbanlife says a lot, we should look at our downtown as stretching all the way to Tidewater Drive. TEAR DOWN THE PROJECTS and expand the downtown. Don't look at it as the St. Paul's Quadrant or another Freemason neighborhood. Look at this as Downtown Norfolk East. Norfolk should be shooting for that neighborhood enclosed by Tidewater DR , St Pauls, E City Hall, and E Brambleton to be just as, if not more dense than what we currently look at as downtown.

[Mobius57]

We need progressive leadership like Charlotte has, and retain it!

[urbanlife]

That's where voting for the right people comes in. I have always felt Norfolk should of been the San Francisco of Virginia.

[PeninsulaKiddo]

That's where voting for the right people comes in. I have always felt Norfolk should of been the San Francisco of Virginia.

[usermel]

That post above, just WOW! WOW! Very insightful and well said. WOW! Just WOW!!! The points about San Fran and Norfolk, VALID! The racism is still thick here, I became somewhat use to it and until music industry friends visit and comment how it is, I didnt think about it. The comparisons for geography were very interesting as well and density and urban culture plays a part in the cities we reside. The people add the flavor in the Kool-Aid, not the city officials. We are the vices and the people who create culture and whats accepted and not accepted. Has Norfolk slowly become more liberal,well a little. Still a ways to go but, its becoming better, bit by bit! Iv'e been to San Fran and the Bay Area, very different vibe and mentality to music and the arts as a whole. So many different cultures and choices of lifestyle and on and on.

We are decades behind were San Fran is and thats not a good nor bad thing. We have to in Norfolk understand that our pst effected our present. I cant say how much VA's past is what folks I meet from NY to L.A still think of VA and the south despite the strides we have made, were still seen as a place were racism and culture and the arts as well as urban lifestyles dont exist. It can change but, it starts with the citizens and sacrifice and a willingness to speak out and up. And make moves and stop talking. WE Urban Planet folks men and woman are the type of people who provoke change! Is it up to us alone? NO, but we can get it started like MC Hammer!

Chinatown in San Fran is great as is the whole city and the set up, classic city and one of the if not the only city west of Chicago that is like a east coast city in feel. So urban and Northeast like(besides the weather,hahahaha!) its amazing. I hope we make more changes as citizens culture and arts wise. The sporting news as far as pro sports can help but, has little to do with functions we as citizens throw, the events we support and dont are a mirror into the soul of our metro. Who we are in Norfolk is what we see and do and that starts with us. If we dont support each other will growth such as San Fran has and other larger cities be possible No, well maybe, heck I dont know but, I feel an area with forward thinkers is alot more equipped for success than a metro full of folks that disagree just to be difficult or spiteful!!! L.G.N.M

[Telmnstr]

San Francisco is in California. California pulls in lots of money from the world as a whole. They produce product. This brings in money.

Norfolk doesn't produce like that.

[calwinston]

San Francisco is one of the most progressive cities in the United States. They have Silicon Valley to a strong port, manufacturing base and top universities like UC Berkeley and Stanford. Norfolk has the port and federal government with top second tier universities. The two do not compare except they both are coastal cities!

[usermel]

The sad thing about our most recent comments about the comparisons of Norfolk and San Francisco is, Norfolk had a chance to be close to what San Francisco is today. I'm not saying it could be the total equal to todays San Francisco, that's a stretch to say the least. What I am saying is in the past Norfolk has dropped the ball on opportunities it has had to grow the city properly. The people who have inhabited the city for the most part have been ultra conservative as well. So from a political aspect to a citizen aspect a conservative mindset locally has set a course what we have today in Norfolk. The anti-progressive attitude of past city leaders and current leaders is an issue as well. Not to mention the tension we see from a racial front in city government as well. To much baggage that Norfolk needs to get rid of.

The mindset may be a couple generations away from changing and will take politicians who are now 18-25 to change the way Norfolk thinks and grows. Old minds create the same result. Being progressive as San Francisco is starts were all progress and change does, with the citizens of that city and the communities that make up that city! L.G.N.M

[PeninsulaKiddo]

It's interesting to me what 'makes' these so-called superstar cities (like San Francisco, Manhattan, Boston) such "superstars," and what sets them apart from others, like Norfolk. I mean that not in the sense that obviously San Francisco (to return to the example abovementioned) is wealthier, more densely populated, benefitted more from history and geopolitics and economics in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, because those are givens. Clearly Norfolk and San Francisco diverged on completely different trajectories, but also each has its strong points and and weak points; some aspects of living in Norfolk are demonstrably better than SF, and vice-versa. For those of us who tend toward UrbanPlanet, in general many forumers like 'us' who love cities, urban developments, architecture, etc., and are in many ways more progressive and open-minded than the average citizen in our respctive locales, etc.; in many ways, these mindsets and values lead to the "rankings" that are so popular on UP and so often lead to virulent debate and disagreement... Quantitatively, San Francisco, Manhattan, Boston, Chicago, Washington, and others dwarf Norfolk and the 757; but subjective elements like quality of life, vibrancy of arts and cultural amenities... and many others are what 'makes' the city. That's where Norfolk, Virginia Beach, and the other cities have potential looking forward.

But, I mentioned the designation "superstar" city -- I sadly didn't come up with it myself. It was in the new special issue of the Smithsonian magazine, devoted to "40 things you need to know about the next 40 years." (what a claim for a title!) It was an interesting read--some severely flawed statements lending toward "infotainment" jargon and "instant expert's" nonsense--but, much of it made me think. In the next 40 years, one writer noted, such superstar cities like San Francisco, Boston, and Manhattan will remain integral fixtures of American identity, polity, and the economy... but they won't be as dominant. Instead, as their housing prices remain obscenely high, as cost of living continues to climb (far outpacing inflation and pay increases), such cities will only cement their "elite" stereotypes; they will be less and less accessible to the mass of the American population, which is already the case for New York, San Francisco, and others. In their stead, the "less glamorous" "second tier" of American cities will rise as bona fide competitors, centers of banking, finance, and innovation alike. Phoenix, Dallas, Atlanta, Charlotte, and other Sunbelt cities -- suburban sprawls (and epicenters of the housing bubble) -- will become ever-more important because they will fulfill a social/cultural role left vacant by the increasingly decadent SF, New York, and Boston: the Sunbelt cities will become the new vehicles for upward mobility in the US, so-called "cities of aspiration."

I think in the US of 2050, irrespective of many dubious claims elsewhere in the Smithsonian article about what it will look like, the 757 is well-poised to take advantage of a few upcoming opportunities; as many as 100 million more people will live in the US by 2050 (a conservative, low-balled estimate, vis-a-vis the Census Bureau's 420m+ estimate, and the UN's own of 405m+ by 2050). Many of these people will be today's minorities; whites will be a minority (<50%) as early as 2030. If the traditional hubs of innovation and entrepreneurship -- major cities of the Northeast (NY/Boston), the Midwest (Chicago), and the West Coast (Seattle, Portland, SF) -- continue to outprice young innovators, the influx of immigrants, among others, this "second tier" will become the beneficiaries. It is to this second tier that Norfolk, Virginia Beach, and other HR cities should be planning toward over the long-run because that is where America's future will be. The 757 will never be the Bay Area, or Chicagoland (perhaps for the best), or other "superstar" areas, but it has great potential that should not be overlooked.

The point I guess is that cities can and do change, it can happen even in a generation, and local area politicians and planners need to be more-aware of that reality they seem to fatalistically reject. The meteoric rise and fall of Detroit -- within the span of a single century (a footnote in historical terms, compared to the ancient cities of the Eastern Hemisphere) -- lends credence to that notion (or, going global, names like Abu Dhabi, Doha, Jakarta, Mumbai, Mexico City, all come to mind -- transformed in mere decades).

[VBIllini13]

The sad thing about our most recent comments about the comparisons of Norfolk and San Francisco is, Norfolk had a chance to be close to what San Francisco is today. I'm not saying it could be the total equal to todays San Francisco, that's a stretch to say the least. What I am saying is in the past Norfolk has dropped the ball on opportunities it has had to grow the city properly. The people who have inhabited the city for the most part have been ultra conservative as well. So from a political aspect to a citizen aspect a conservative mindset locally has set a course what we have today in Norfolk. The anti-progressive attitude of past city leaders and current leaders is an issue as well. Not to mention the tension we see from a racial front in city government as well. To much baggage that Norfolk needs to get rid of.

The mindset may be a couple generations away from changing and will take politicians who are now 18-25 to change the way Norfolk thinks and grows. Old minds create the same result. Being progressive as San Francisco is starts were all progress and change does, with the citizens of that city and the communities that make up that city! L.G.N.M

[urbanlife]

San Francisco is one of the most progressive cities in the United States. They have Silicon Valley to a strong port, manufacturing base and top universities like UC Berkeley and Stanford. Norfolk has the port and federal government with top second tier universities. The two do not compare except they both are coastal cities!

[VBIllini13]

On your point about annexation, I will say that Chicago grew largely by annexation as well as land reclamation (both of which Norfolk has done) and Chicago has become quite the big city.

I would love to see a word map of all the neighborhoods of Norfolk and have that be a map for the city's identity to help strengthen itself and the structure of each of those neighborhoods.