The title is lost. We are no longer No. 1 in Cities: Ranked and Rated, the 2nd edition of the book put out by Frommer’s (guidebook of the upper-middle class tourists yearning to hit the respectable talking-point sites on the next family vacation). Charlottesville has fallen, in fact, to No. 17 in the list of 373 cities nationwide. Gainsville, Florida, can now lay claim to the No. 1 for U.S. cities—just as its University of Florida has taken No. 1 in football and basketball.
What happened to Charlottesville? Apparently the charm of our Jeffersonian architecture and intellectual culture was diluted by rising home prices and cost-of-living. The book notes the rise of a median home to $345,000 from $177,000 in the course of three years.
“I don’t call it a plummet to drop from 1 to 17. The fact that we’re 17 in the country is amazing,” says Dave Phillips, CEO of the Charlottesville Area Association of Realtors. “We do have an affordability problem here, I think that’s what they were pointing out. We’re having trouble with members of our workforce living in the communities that they work in and that’s going to be something we have to wrestle with as a community.”
Phillips doesn’t see a connection between the rising home prices and our No. 1 rating in 2004. “Our growth rate here [in Albemarle] is way overblown. We’re actually a very moderately growing community.”
Will national developers forego Charlottesville now and descend upon gator-haven Gainesville, driving up their housing costs and wrecking in the process that which they loved? Guess we’ll have to wait for the 3rd edition.
C-VILLE welcomes news tips from readers. Send them to news@c-ville.com.
