“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”
T.S. Elliot
Hello all, my name is Grant Smith. I am 20, living and going to school in Richmond Virginia. I am a 3rd year student at Virginia Commonwealth University where I study Journalism with minors in History and Environmental Studies.
We are all a product of our environment and it seems fitting to me the path laid out before me has been greatly influenced by my time here in Richmond. Others might know this city offhand, as a relic of a bygone era, the capital of the Confederacy– emblematic of the old south.
But times have changed, Richmond has changed, and it is reinventing itself as you read this. For the first time in a hundred years the city is growing, spurred on by a unique culture of entrepreneurs and artists, big business and collegiate academia.
The goal of this blog is to advocate the overarching power of place and its effect on shaping our being. To understand the nature of Richmond today we must look at the accumulation of factors that catalyzed its development. To analyze these factors, we must understand the history, the natural environment, and the culture.
onmuddledwaters 