Charlottesville, the bustling little metropolis right in the northern/center of Virginia, the small town with the even smaller town mindset. For being a city serving an 80,000 person metropolis, it's dramatically far behind. There's 4 movie theaters, none of which have more than 6 screens or have stadium seating and none of the movie choices overlap (as in...I won't see Harry Potter 7.2 because it's only showing in the theater that smells most like urine...and there's no other choice to go see it but travel to a different city, or pirate it :D). Of course there's a plan to build a new complex where there would be a great new movie theater...they've been in permitting fights since 2003 and the board is hell bent on not letting them build. In fact, even though a new project group took it over and broke ground to put in the new sewer lines...the city is trying to REVOKE the permits. Why? Read here: http://cvilletomorrow.typepad.com/charlottesville_tomorrow_/2011/06/stonefield.html

Some of my favorite exerpts from that little gem:

“This would be perfectly fine down at Short Pump,” said board member Bruce Wardell. “But Short Pump’s out in this contemporary, entirely newly constructed environment.”

“I think if we approve a building with this much stucco in it, we’ll never be able to say no to anybody else with anything this size ever again,” said board member Paul Wright. “Either we’re making an enormous change in our design criteria here or we’re not.”

“I think of these changes as minimal,” Wright said. “I’m getting the same sort of blank white building. I’m getting a building that doesn’t respond to local architecture, and you’re tinkering on the edges.”

Oh well that makes sense, a giant useful new clean complex would be totally worthless if it didn't fit in with the local architecture, right? If it didn't respect the design history of the city? Well I thought I'd highlight some of the design that the city is trying to protect. I won't even have to leave my desk...I'll do it from the comfort of google maps :D