Greater Richmond is on the verge of something great. That was the mood in the air at the GOOD Ideas for Cities event held this spring at the Virginia Historical Society. The much buzzed about evening saw three groups presenting ideas to make the region a better place.
A traveling showcase hosted by GOOD Magazine, the event brought together teams to tackle challenges related to business, tourism, and education. And most of all, to come up with solutions.
The first group of the evening, James RVA, presented a multi-step plan to transform the James River into the focal point of Downtown Richmond. The group’s first phase included plans to launch a website, JamesRVA.com, to serve as a central platform to map walks, share photos, add tips, and interact with friends. The second phase linked users to restaurants and shops near the river.
Included in the presentation was a service, titled Pop Up RVA, designed to simplify the process of obtaining city permits. The goal, explained the group, was to ultimately encourage entrepreneurs to start pop-up and cart-based businesses, such as ice cream carts, kiosk-style art shops, and bike rental services for use on Belle Isle and Brown’s Island.
Next up was WhyRVA, which discussed using the I-95 corridor to bolster tourism. The group detailed plans to encourage motorists to discover all that Greater Richmond has to offer, rather than just passing through. Their plan was to catch the attention of thousands of travelers barreling down the freeway every day with event announcements, sculptures, beautiful plantings, and overpass murals. Noting over 70% of out-of-towners come to the region to visit family and friends, WhyRVA’s plan would develop resources to create resident ambassadors and encourage use of the Twitter hashtag #WhyRVA and WhyRVA.com to aggregate thoughts about what makes the region unique.
The third presenter, Peter Fraser of Middle School Matters, discussed the perception of public schools. Fraser focused on the socioeconomic gap often found between students of vastly different family income levels, as well the figurative slide from the top of the totem pole (when fifth graders slip down to the bottom rung of the ladder in the sixth grade), a stigma he says our culture has created. While there’s no simple solution, argued Fraser, it is time to start breaking down these barriers to create strong communities within the school system and establish more mentoring programs for local youth.
“Not one thing on this list isn’t actionable,” explained Andreas Addison, Richmond Civic Innovation Team Manager, after the event. Addison added, however, that it’s now up to Richmonders to find ways to creatively and efficiently implement the many ideas shared.