What is going on everyone? Welcome back to the world according to Briggs
I am Briggs and I am finally going to break down and do a video
that's been requested many many times by someone that's been a channel member
since i opened that thing up frank lives in richmond virginia and thinks
i won't be able to come up with 10 reasons why someone might not want to
move there and i'll tell you up front it was hard
and i was really reaching on a couple of things on this list
if you're new to this channel let me explain the thing about these videos is
this i'm not telling you not to move to a
place i am giving you some things you might want to know before you move
to a city town or state that won't be on the city's website or a
realtor might not mention these things to you
a lot of the reasons after things like crime and poverty are opinions
my own and people i know that live there or in the area and sometimes i get them
off websites where people wrote blogs about their town and things like that
some of the things on these lists might be something you enjoy
and you're probably wondering why is it on the list of reasons you might not
want to move there because other people don't like it
weather is a perfect example i will tell people about the heat in vegas as a
negative half of the people love the heat the
other half including myself hate the heat okay today we're talking
about richmond virginia richmond has a population of just over
200 000 and the metro area has about 1.2 million
it's right here not too far inland from the chesapeake bay
and it has the james river flowing right through town richmond is a beautiful
city richmond was incorporated in 1742
and has been an independent city since 1871
so it's been here a while all right let's see some things that might stop
you from moving to richmond virginia number 10 nascar lovers believe it or
not this was listed by more than a few people
richmond virginia residents love their racing the city took double helpings may
have even gone back for thirds when they were dishing out nascar fans as one
resident put it you will eventually be invited to go watch a race or at least
be caught up in a one-sided conversation about the beauties of nascar now that
part is i'm sure a decent exaggeration but what
isn't is race weekends the sprint cup series
and the nationwide series are held at the richmond international raceway
it gets loud traffic gets rough and crowds of sunburned southerners
roam through the city it's not just nascar either they have
other events throughout the year that you know don't get as crowded as the
nascar but they can get pretty harsh number nine
bad drivers now this one is incredibly ironic considering they're such
nascar fans and racing fans drivers in richmond were named some of the worst
drivers in the country by a study done by quote wizard an online insurance
rate website they said that these people are some of
the worst drivers you have in the country and i just think it's so weird
because they're so into racing the website includes four factors in
their study accidents speeding tickets duis and citations like running red
lights using cell phone while driving etc the
drivers rarely obey crosswalk laws in richmond and some of the drivers don't
even stop for pedestrians even though they might have the right of way bike
lanes are pretty much a joke to the drivers of richmond
maybe they should quit watching as much nascar i mean
teach these people that two to three inches is not a good distance between
you and the car in front of you on the highway
things like that go a long way maybe they can even learn rubbing is racing
but it's not commuting number eight the poverty rate richmond
is a nice city but they have a strange amount of poverty
all cities have poverty i get it but when you visit
and not live in richmond you might not realize it the median household income
in richmond is 26 percent lower than the national average
some of these homes are so poor emo goth kids drive through these neighborhoods
to get inspiration on how to be depressed the poverty rate
in richmond is 25.2 percent that's 68 percent higher than the national average
one out of every four homes in richmond lives in poverty basically the poverty
rate across the state of virginia is fairly low
it's 11.2 percent median richmond is dramatically higher than the average
percentage of residents living below the poverty line in the state of virginia
it's kind of sad now when i give you stats like that keep
in mind these are 2019 numbers if you look up the stats now
since the pandemic hit it's a different story but that's across the board so
we're going by 2019 stats actually that was the last complete year anyway
number seven high taxes so follow along here virginia isn't known as a high tax
state but nobody ever thinks that when they're paying taxes
everyone thinks the taxes are the highest in the country wherever they
happen to be paying taxes it's just how we are virginia is
actually ranked as 38th in the highest taxes so they're not even
doing that bad the three highest states are new
york hawaii and vermont so some of the things going on there
might catch you off guard especially if you're coming from a state with
low or no sales tax like here in oregon in richmond you have a meal tax
now they have this throughout the country in a lot of different places but
theirs is pretty high the meal tax rate in the city of
richmond is 7.5 percent of the amount paid for the prepared food you purchased
in the city of richmond basically if you buy takeout or you eat
in a restaurant you got to pay this tax that's what the prepared food mean if
someone's making your food for you and whether you take it home or you eat it
right there in the place you gotta pay the tax
combined with the sales tax you're paying an extra 12.8 percent for your
freaking buffalo wings that's pretty brutal then they have this
thing called the admission tax the admission tax is basically for any place
that charges admission you know you got to
buy a ticket to go see a comedy show i don't know sporting event whatever
concert you got to pay an extra seven percent on top of everything else
just to get in so yeah their taxes kind of suck but they're not the worst
number six poor roads richmond is ranked 24th
with the worst roads out of 167 cities ranked while doing the research for this
video we came across posts about the roads in and around
richmond both past and present actually it's been a problem
for quite a while i found a myspace page devoted to richmond potholes they should
start checking the caves for petroglyphs talking about the potholes in richmond
in 2016 the mayor made street cleanup a priority and started paving the roads
but to this day it's pretty much still a hubcap cemetery there's approximately 22
000 potholes that are filled annually in this city
there's still always more they're everywhere sometimes they're an
unwelcome surprise on your morning commute and other times you know
it's a quick trip to the mechanics to get something fixed or at least a blown
out tire taken care of data shows that 65 of richmond's roads
are in need of repair and are getting worse
four years ago that number was 50 so he started cleaning these things up
in 2016 and it's gotten worse doesn't make sense
now part of the reason why these roads are in such bad
shape i mean besides no one's taking care of them properly is what's beneath
the roads old street car lines brick and cobblestone make a poor
subsurface that can cause sinkholes and cratering
but like all things when it comes to a city it's budget
problems that's our biggest problem money
number five a lot of tourism tourism is good in a lot of ways the positive
almost always outweigh the negatives those are just facts
you should know some things before moving to a tourist type city richmond
is a historic city and when you have history you get visitors the richmond
area sees more than seven million people a year seven
million people that's a lot of people contributing more than two billion
dollars to the local economy that's about seven million per day
tourism generates over twenty thousand jobs in the richmond region
most the visitors come between april and september and that begins the problem
ninety percent of the seven million people that show up here show up in a
six-month time frame if you've ever lived in tourist
town you know it's a double-edged sword you need them to come and bring those
dollars but they also bring crowds and headaches and part-time jobs a lot
of the jobs here are seasonal unless you're in a career type thing but if you
work in any of the hospitality things any of the local museums and stuff like
that they cut back on staff half the year and
that could be a problem but the traffic picks up
the restaurants are hard to get into things like that just all the headaches
you get from getting a big influx of people during a short time
span not really short but six months we'll get into the history on the next
one number four the capital the confederacy now richmond
was the capital of the confederacy during the civil war if you're not even
caught up on that basically the rebellious side of the country
was the confederacy okay moving on now this is a great historical point
a view for a lot of people and others not so much
especially these days if you've been living under rock let me catch you up
richmond like i said was the capital of the confederacy
so it has a lot of civil war history going on here and that history by a lot
of people's standards is bad history now i'm a firm believer
that all history is kind of good if it's good history and pleasant
history we take pride in it as a country if it's bad history we learn from it so
erasing it and forgetting about it in my opinion is bad now the symbols
like the statues and stuff it's a different story
all that being said richmond has confederate general statues
lining one of the biggest roadways in the city and really you're never far
from a reminder of the city's civil war history this whole place is just covered
in it it's how they make their money through tourism there to see civil war
history if you're the type that think those
statues should come down chances are if you mention it to a local
they aren't gonna be on board with your cause
okay you might even get some tude a lot of people might not know all this
because virginia is pretty far north on your map i mean
richmond is a southern city through and through there's no
dispute in that these days the climate's a little bit different and if you've got
some different views than they are i'd keep them to yourself if you don't
want any extra headaches now if you want to take a stance about that and
protest i'm the last guy to tell someone not to protest if you feel you got a
cause you go protest i just think this might be the wrong city to be doing it
alone in number three the schools this one is
sort of strange reports and different organizations have come out about how
schools are severely underfunded in richmond they have said that the
students are using outdated textbooks and equipment and that their student
teacher ratio is 14-1 it's not the worst but
locals complain about it for some reason i i don't think that one's a big deal
but that seems to be something they're concerned with one
report said that the schools have too many repair
projects that have been put off for far too long and of course that's a budget
issue they do have some solid gripes about how
the schools are run and taken care of but that meal tax thing we talked about
earlier the raise that raise is going to the school so maybe that'll
help i read that it's nowhere near what they need
but it's something now this is the part that i find strange
all those negative things about the schools that are wrong and everyone
thinks are horrible the school test scores don't show that
richmond test scores are 31 percent higher than the national
average and they have a good graduation rate they're doing something right
sounds like the teachers are doing their job well nobody else is
number two nuclear power plants the state of virginia has
four nuclear power plants and two of them are near richmond now to most
people this isn't a big deal it's just you know a power plant other
people who have seen hbo's chernobyl it's a deal breaker for them you'll want
to pay attention to the evacuation routes in your area
and have an emergency plan in place for you and your family to manage the
situation now it is very unlikely that this will
ever happen but it's better to be safe than sorry
and if you're moving here just kind of pay attention to this a little bit
like i said this may not bother a lot of you but some people
don't want to be anywhere near one of these facilities because of the risk of
contamination if you do want to make that move keep in
mind you're living close to one of these facilities
and you might find your house at a cheaper rate because of it
depending on how close you are to one of the plants
and number one not a place for allergies this is not going to be a big deal to a
lot of you but believe it or not this is a major deal breaker for people
moving to certain cities around the country
matter of fact a lot of people that really suffer from allergies they end up
living in arizona and parts of new mexico and texas just
to get away from all that nonsense but if you suffer from seasonal
allergies richmond might not be the place to live its greenery makes it an
incredibly difficult place for allergy sufferers
according to the asthma and allergy foundation of america richmond
is the worst city in the united states for seasonal allergies
the aafa says more than 50 million americans are living with nasal
allergies nasal allergies is that just a thing
because man my eyes water i look like someone's
punched me in the nose you ever notice that you get punched in the nose in your
eyes it doesn't hurt as bad as your eyes just start
watering that's the worst part about it then you get blurry and you can't see
and if you're in a situation you may get
punched again in the nose while you're trying to recover from the first one
anyway yeah that has nothing to do with allergies moving on if you have allergy
issues stay out of richmond virginia no amount
of sudafed will satisfy you know if you've got
allergies you know sudafed and some of those things work occasionally not all
the time
all right so that is our list today hope you guys enjoyed it hope you enjoyed it
frank been asking for it for a while finally
got to it buddy don't forget all the links below
give the video a big thumbs up tell me what you thought if you haven't
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each other you