charlottesville rules!

The National Trust for Historic Preservation has recently named Charlottesville as one of its dozen distinctive destinations for 2007! Now I like Charlottesville, but I think it is pretty amazing that whenever an organization is compiling lists of best places to live or visit that Charlottesville is consistently cited as a top location.

When visitors come to Charlottesville I hope they take some time to tour Route 29 North, which is an eight+ lane road with miles and miles of underutilized strip malls. The majority of the Charlottesville metro population lives in this section of Albemarle County, which is a much wealthier area than the City of Charlottesville.


UVA professor Tim Beatley in his recent book Native to Nowhere has a picture taken within Charlottesville city limits very similar to the one above. So when people visit Charlottesville they can be both in a distinctive destination and nowhere at approximately the same time! Given the vast amount of suburban sprawl and automobile-dominated landscape I would say that the Charlottesville metropolitan area is much more typical rather than distinctive in terms of predominate land use.

If I were recommending a distinctive destination in Virginia I would suggest South Boston. I happened to visit this small town while getting lost on the way down to Chapel Hill two weeks ago and was charmed by the place. South Boston, to its credit, won an award from the Virginia Chaper of the American Planning Association in 2006 for its restoration of the Prizery: a Community, Fine Arts, and Welcome Center. Now this is a distinctive destination.