What a joke
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1/30/2006
The whole Hampton Roads area is a joke.
The economy is completely built around blue collar government contracting, the military, and tourism, none of which contribute to a healthy economic situation. If you arent in the service, or work at the ship yards, youre probably working at Burger King, or cleaning hotels because that represents the majority of available employment. This area has little to no use for college graduates. Its no wonder the majority of the grads from the abundance of local colleges move away. Maybe the area should have taken a cue from the research triangle in North Carolina about how to attract real jobs, and not McJobs, so your college grads stay around and dont filter out.
Housing is completely unaffordable for the average citizen. It is not uncommon to see households spending well over 50% of their income on interest only mortgages.
The schools are terrible. Every public school in Norfolk, Chesapeake, Newport News, and Hampton are cess pools, and 95% of the schools in Virginia Beach are.
Entertainment costs are outrageous and far exceed the disposable income of the average area consumer. There is no shortage of 15+ dollar a plate restaurants and 9 dollar a movie ticket theatres.
The violent crime rate in the area is unacceptable, and local law enforcement is consistantly understaffed due to low wages which do not provide enough for public infrastructure employees to live in the same overpriced city they serve.
All of that, and you get to sit in one of the worst cases of gridlock on the east coast on a daily basis. It literally takes 30 minutes to drive 10 miles between 8-9am and 5-6pm. Dont worry though, the state will fix the problem with more roads, at your expense of course.
This group of cities is a prime example of how you DONT want to run your city. Everyone I know cant wait to escape, but are trapped by low wages, and inflated housing costs.
Michael | Norfolk, VA