River City Revival — Confederate Capital Turned Creative Hub, Class IV Rapids in the Urban Core
Richmond is a city wrestling productively with its history — the former capital of the Confederacy is now home to one of the most vibrant street-art scenes in the United States, a craft-brewery district (Scott's Addition) that rivals any in the country, and a culinary scene anchored by generations of Vietnamese, Indian, and Salvadoran immigrant communities alongside celebrated Southern restaurants. The James River, once powering tobacco and flour mills, now runs class IV whitewater rapids through the urban core at James River Park — the only urban whitewater stretch of this kind in the easter…
Richmond was the capital of the Confederate States of America from May 1861 until its evacuation and burning in April 1865, when Confederate soldiers torched the business district rather than let it fall intact to Union troops. The tobacco economy that built antebellum Richmond was replaced over the following century by financial services, healthcare, and manufacturing. Monument Avenue, built between 1890 and 1929 to honour Confederate generals, was the centrepiece of the city's Lost Cause mythology; the removal of most Confederate monuments in 2020 during the George Floyd protests transforme…