Cobalt

I wish I could provide a link for you to a really interesting article the Washington Post published recently. The title was something along the lines of, "The Suburbs Have Won." It was thought-provoking for me because I'd always (probably foolishly) considered the suburbs a -- fairly -- uniquely American phenomenon. And although we may live that life in the extreme, compared to other nations, the article was saying that even fabled cities in Europe and Asian countries have been losing population. Besides the cost of housing in the cities, there was some of the same desire for a patch of ground to call one's own. Of course, the article also mentioned the news that was reported so much several weeks ago: That a number of U.S. cities that had gained population in the '90s and sparked talk of a new urbanism were once again losing population. I'm glad that Norfolk thus far seems to be bucking the rebuff of urban living, but maybe it shouldn't be too surprising since the residents of this area, until the last several years, had no true opportunity for downtown living, and certainly nothing as high-style as Granby Tower. Great signature line, by the way.

Granby Tower and projects like it are steps in the right direction. Interestingly, the Norfolk Preservation Alliance recently sponsored a speaker who's written a well-regarded book on urbanism. His criticism of Norfolk was what you cited: Suburban development in an urban area. I didn't recognize the slide he showed when he said that, but I think it was one of the newer mixed-income neighborhoods. His point is that a city has to be a certain density to be self-sustaining, and that the density in that newly-rebuilt neighborhood (single-family homes) was just too low to be appropriate.

Okay, I'm *really* getting off-topic for what's a Granby Tower thread -- my apologies -- but did you read the "Yellow Fever" series in the VA-Pilot? (It's on-topic in that it focused on DT Norfolk. ) I wasn't interested in the articles at all until my parents were so enamored of it. So, I read it, and it was amazing to me to consider how much an epidemic in the late 1800s so radically shaped what this area became for many decades. Long story short, according to the series, many of the areas's best and brightest were killed, and the only way lots of people could make money was with prostitution and saloons, which, of course, is what Granby was known for in the 1930s, '40s, and beyond. Who's to say how Norfolk (and Portsmouth) might've been different if that plague hadn't occurred.

Not to take this too far off-topic, but I'm curious on your perspective of where all the money is coming from to pay such enormous prices for real estate in this area. Although I'm in the R.E. business, most of my company's work is elsewhere, and I rarely interact with buyers anyway. But when I look at job postings in this area, I don't see much that's really great-paying, yet there seems to be no shortage of moneyed buyers. In fact, I would say there's a good chance that no one who lives in my building could buy at today's prices, other than the Oceana pilot -- who's the only one who paid anywhere close to what the units would fetch today.