Richmonders once feared our city's streets were lost to the criminals when the sun set, today's Times-Dispatch reports that our hopes have prevailed over fear.

Central Virginia enjoyed a 2.5 percent drop in major reported crime last year, even as the region's population grew by at least that much.

...

Richmond, Reitzel added, "is obviously a much safer place than in years past," because in addition to a sizable drop in homicides, "you're seeing similar trends across all the violent-crime categories and property crimes. And this has been going over a number of years now."

...

Richmond was the only jurisdiction among the 24 localities to report decreases in all eight major categories of crime: homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, vehicle theft and arson.

...

The department's success stems from a variety of things, Buckovich
said, including sector policing, community engagement and a
problem-solving approach to fighting crime that uses focus-mission
teams to more intensely target specific areas and individuals.

Al Pacino summed it all up in the movie City Hall:

There was a palace that was a city. It was a PALACE! It was a PALACE
and it CAN BE A PALACE AGAIN! A PALACE, in which there is no king or
queen, or dukes or earls or princes, but subjects all: subjects
beholden to each other, to make a better place to live. Is that too
much to ask?

Richmond too can be a palace again and it will be as long as citizens and their government can unite in justice and common good.