The Downtown Plan: "If This Were Made of Porridge, We'd Love It!"

The overarching message I heard today during the Richmond Planning Commission's working session on the proposed Downtown Plan was some amalgam of this:

• Too much vision.
• Too much detail.
• Let's not be inspirational. It scares some people.
• Let's not set ambitious expectations. We might have to follow through.

Tomorrow, I'll have more on last night's public hearing and today's working session with Dover Kohl. My notes are currently on my desk in Goochland, but the hour conversation between planning commission members and Victor Dover was pretty damned painful. I expect Jon Baliles will have something up tonight or tomorrow morning at River City Rapids; he looked pained when I slipped out for another meeting.

To be fair, some commission members showed up with passion, energy and vision. Others seemed to work very hard to appear to care. And yet others really enjoy hearing themselves talk, and revel in the status quo.

Regardless of who wrote the check, Jim Crupi's assessment nailed this city so well:

The area’s leaders ability to understand the problems that face the area is only surpassed by their inability to work together to solve the area’s problems and take advantage of its opportunities. As was true 15 years ago, the default position among area leaders is to make individual, tactical, project oriented decisions without the framework and benefit of an overarching strategic vision and plan. There is no compelling picture of the future that gets people excited. One could almost say that the Richmond area is blessed with many great managers, but few leaders. It has people who are strong on execution but weak on seeing how all the pieces should fit together. They are weak on vision. They are like managers of a department that fails to recognize the impact their decisions have on the rest of the organization. There is either little “political” nerve and statesmanship or, the lack of clarity about the future prevents daring initiatives. (Crupi, 2007)