lammius

I like Chicago a lot. It would be on my short list if I had to leave here for some reason. I also agree about Dallas. Seemingly endless suburban sprawl. Houston isn't much (any?) better, really. IMO the only thing that makes Houston a little more interesting than Dallas is ethnic diversity. TBH, I'm not really a fan of Austin either. Haven't been to San Antonio yet, but something tells me I'd probably like it more than the other major TX cities.

FWIW, Norfolk should do this along its existing line as well, but so far they have not outside of downtown.

There's less funding than there is need, so the funding has to go to where there is demonstrable need. If building a new LRT line will cost a billion or two (IDK what the actual cost would be), and it'll cost $80 million/year to operate it, why make that investment if nobody's there to ride it? There are thousands of projects that can demonstrate a better return-on-investment. You say that Greenbrier is a fast-growing area. So there may be more demand in the future. Chesapeake has an opportunity to demonstrate that by upzoning to >100 units/acre density and dropping/reducing parking minimums where this line would exist. That sounds like a lot by Hampton Roads standards, but in rail transit situations, that's not very much. From a transit service perspective, this is a chance for Chesapeake to prove a market. From Chesapeake's perspective, this is an opportunity to continue growing in a focused, intentional, and more sustainable way.

A light rail line using the bridge Amtrak uses from downtown Norfolk, then cuts over to the rail line that eventually ends up behind Sams and close to Dollar Tree HQ could work in this area. However, the population density is so low along this corridor. You'd need to be willing to upzone virtually all of it to encourage transit-focused development and population growth.

Yeah, got a job in Midtown at a leading firm in my field after grad school. Love the city, and have become addicted to living car-free. Jersey City offers more space for the dollar than NYC, but i can still get around easily and freely without a car. Nothing wrong with the cities on your list, but they're not my speed.

You and I are the same age. I grew up loving Norfolk and even during college thought of living an urban life downtown or Ghent. But there weren't opportunities for me in HR and I left. I've been gone almost 20 years now and yet I still regularly check out this board because I want to see the area grow up to the potential I thought it always had.

Looking at those charts, it seems it's really a story about population growth in Northern Virginia driving the state's population growth trend from 1990-2019. Hampton Roads has been growing at less than half the national rate of growth and is losing share to other regions of the state (especially Northern VA) and to other parts of the country, which are growing much faster than HR (especially other metro areas, as most US popn growth is in major metros). That doesn't mean that HR is "losing population" but you could argue (and pull some data points to show) that it means HR is dropping down the ranks of relative importance among metro areas, which has a variety of economic and other implications.

Complacency.

How about Norfolk to Norfolk Island?

Great. So a fortified bunker downtown?

"Virginia's busiest airport not counting Virginia's busiest airports" ?? lol

Love a good New Haven style "abeetz"

Yeah, it was always "Monti-sell-o " when I lived in Norfolk. But that's been nearly 20 years ago. Monti-chell-o was some house near Charlottesville.

The part of Downtown that Waterside Drive goes through was bulldozed in the 1950s and re-built in the 1960s-90s. It indeed was developed for another era of trying to make cities look and feel like suburbs. That era is over, and Waterside Drive should catch up.

Yeah, Waterside Drive is a monstrosity that should not exist in a modern downtown district.