Erika Howsare has been a C-VILLE contributor since 2002. Her first nonfiction book is The Age of Deer: Trouble and Kinship with Our Wild Neighbors (2024), and she hosted a podcast miniseries called “If You See a Deer.” She teaches writing locally.
Where’s the point of diminishing returns when you go to great lengths to recycle?
The current edition of Green Reads links you to stories on wind power, fall crops and other essential reading.
Locals may have rallied for a Trader Joe’s a few years back, but we never asked for this. Urban Outfitters opened in May in what used to be the Hardware Store, which to be sure was a little hokey, but was joyfully, thoroughly, undeniably local. It was a family-run business where you could get anything […]
With a grant from the likes of National Geographic, and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of enthusiasm for other folks’ enthusiasms, Charlottesville’s own Ross McDermott and Andrew Owen gallivant around the country documenting, through photos and video, the oddball festivals and celebrations that mark small-town life. The World Beard and Moustache Championships in Anchorage, Alaska; the […]
On January 31, something remarkable happened: A line of idling cars backed up from the Crutchfield parking lot onto Route 29N, filled with folks just itching to do a good deed. Over the course of six hours that Saturday, locals dropped off 109 tons of computers, stereos, phones, VCRs and other gadgets for recycling. We […]
No self-respecting college town (or—let’s just say it—liberal oasis) can properly be without a core group of folks who are out there spreading the gospel of cooperative living and non-fossil-fuel transportation. It’d be like having no health food store. Meet your local ambassadors of the friendly fringe: Kassia Arbabi and Sky Blue. The two are […]
UVA architecture and engineering students made sleeping shelters out of the stuff that’s probably in your recycling bin right now. Back in September 2008, some beautiful and smart new ways to repose in the great outdoors sprouted in the yard of UVA architecture prof John Quale. They were the creations of architecture and engineering students […]
Scanning the highest-end real estate listings at mycaar.com is an eye-opening experience. Are you toiling at two-and-a-half jobs to keep up with your ballooning mortgage payments, knowing you owe 40 grand more than your house is actually worth? Or saving up for your very own double-wide in Buckingham County, from which you’ll be commuting 50 […]
Call it the ultimate red dirt alert. Several years ago, during development of Hollymead Town Centre on 29N, a large swath of bare ground sat with no vegetation. Seasons passed, and every rainstorm washed away more soil. “We live downstream from Hollymead Town Centre,” said Scott Elliff, a director of the Forest Lakes Community Association, […]
We find evidence on every block that locals care about the planet.