Modernization or Historic Preservation? The City of Richmond is Torn

"Modernization or Historic Preservation? The City of Richmond is Torn" - Voice of America News (3:07) (2014).

Before America's Civil War in the 1860s, the southern city of Richmond, Virginia was home to the nation's second largest slave trading district. Today, the neighborhood known as Shockoe Bottom is targeted for development and modernization. But residents and historic preservationists worry that those plans will endanger its legacy. While Richmond’s Mayor advocates a much needed revitalization plan for this largely blighted African-American community, many fear that the district’s past, still buried under its asphalt-paved parking lots, could be destroyed by developers’ bulldozers. VOA’s Penelope Poulou has more.