The Downtown Plan: TD Editorial Board Doth Complain Too Much

Now that the Times-Dispatch's editorial board has weighed in twice in the span of several weeks on the contentious issues of the future fate of VCU's historic West Hospital Building and the state of Richmond's proposed Downtown Plan, it's hard not to wonder what bee got under their bonnet.

Is it too gauche to wonder whether the editorialists are channeling VCU President Eugene Trani? Don Harrison at Save Richmond doesn't really get hung up on such niceties and simply calls claptrap for what it is:

If you ever wanted to know what the Richmond Times-Dispatch op ed page really thinks of the rest of us — as opposed to the region’s monied business community, which it seems to exist only to carry water for — just take note of the way these “jerks” use quote marks in this lame and intellectually-dishonest piece of tripe that masquerades as an editorial; you can read the reasons why this piece sucks lemons over at Urban Richmond. [Perhaps recognizing their blatant elitism was showing, the RTD editorialists attempt a kinder, gentler version of the same spiel today — it’s all the same hooey.] A reminder of a political chairman’s considerable and acknowledged ties to institutions that he does daily business with is not a “personal attack,” by the way.

It's been pretty amazing to see how questions about the Richmond Planning Commission chairman's potential conflicts of interest turned into personal attacks, almost overnight. Since I first raised the question several months ago, I've been more amazed then most -- and have been very cautious not to attack architect Robert Mills, beyond digging into the specifics of potential conflicts.

That aside, the TD's editorial team somehow manages to make it seem like Mills was hung in effigy from lampposts downtown during recent planning commission hearings. Nothing could be further from the truth.

What is interesting is the quiet campaign that continues to build behind-the-scenes to put the kibbosh on anything that reeks of specificity when it comes to Richmond's very visionary plan. The same pundits who applaud the plan for its vision with one hand -- the Times-Dispatch editorial board, architect Mills and others -- use one of Richmond's favorite weapons to hammer it into shards.

That weapon is best known as hyper-realism. It's the sort of thing that strategic consultant Jim Crupi derided Richmond about not three months ago, and it is one of the greatest handicaps in the Richmond region.

Not to be confused with realism -- which takes a practical look at the ambitious ideas that often envelop strong visions -- the sort of hyper-realism we continue to see in Richmond is the sort of close-minded defeatism that far too often has left the region decades behind the rest of the country.