Campus Progress-er Jamelle Bouie

Speaking of über-insidery Campus Progress/young blogger’s clubhouse meet-ups, many thanks to my friend Jamelle of the phenomenal United States of Jamerica–plus his housemates Miriam and Blair–for being such great hosts while we were in C-ville.

I’ve been looking forward to visiting Charlottesville, Virginia some time for quite a while–a small group of my friends at school in New York City all grew up there, and I’ve heard many stories. It wasn’t exactly what I expected, but it was still a gorgeous little college town.

One thing that was really remarkable about the city was its transit system. It’s one of the few towns of its size that I’ve seen where one can easily live there without needing the use of a car. The town has a free trolley system in addition to the free transportation provided by UVA for its students, and the whole downtown area is clearly designed for walking, not cars. It’s more or less a giant plaza, with walkways instead of roads, and chairs and tables for outdoor cafés taking up the centers of the wide passages between buildings. Something tells me that as the United States moves away from fossil fuels by necessity, it would do a great of good if more towns had their downtown areas constructed like this. Not only is it more environmentally friendly, but to my mind it’s just plain nicer. Any minor inconvenience from having to wait for the trolley is offset by the fact that much of the town seems easily walkable.

The drive to Charlottesville, by the way, took us through some absolutely gorgeous (though, for a bus of this size, treacherous) farm country. I made a note of mentioning earlier when we passed the Mason-Dixon line, but it wasn’t until we began the drive to Charlottesville that I think we were officially in the south. C-ville, of course, is a blue (read: liberal) spot in a sea of red (ahem, conservitism), and we haven’t experienced much of that red just yet–but we will soon.