River Road is the road to live on in the west end of Richmond. You don't know why. There's probably some historical reason having to do with white flight and integration (as is often behind the scenes in Richmond). But all you know is that it's the road you grew up on and it's the road you love.
It's a windy road, sometimes dangerous. A friend flipped his car on it in high school, driving too fast. You hit a possum on it once, and cried. You've seen deer crossing it at night many times. It's a residential road with very few lights, so you have to be careful. In the summer the trees make a canopy over it and you want to open your windows and turn the radio up loud and smile.
River Road epitomizes old Richmond to you. It's not the new Richmond that you live in, with all the McMansions and stucco shopping centers and subdivisions with houses all on top of each other. River Road has a lot of money on it, but it's not garish and in your face. There's character and snobbery too. It's so CCV and cotillion and Ukrops! It's all the old staples that you love and the way the city used to be when cities all didn't look like each other and there wasn't a Starbucks on every corner. It's the south when people say Richmond isn't the south. It's the Rivah, and you have to say it like that too.
Try this at home:
What epitomizes your city?
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