For more than a decade, Style’s Power List has pinpointed the people at the center of Richmond’s most significant discussions — and ranked their level of power.
The word power isn’t one of those comfortable concepts among polite company. For many people it conjures up the kind of greedy, desk-pounding, backroom-scheming movie character that Michael Douglas might play.
But power is acquired — and used — in all kinds of ways. It exists, it lives and breathes. And it manifests itself throughout the debates that shape a community.
As we define it, power is a combination of formal and informal factors: money, leadership, persuasion, celebrity. It’s the control of community resources and level of good will attained. It can be won and lost, earned and given away.
The Power List, as always, is a snapshot in time, an effort to answer such questions as: What’s driving the local economy? Who’s shaping Richmond’s cultural identity? And who’s in a prime position to drive debate and shape the city’s future?
But the Power List is more than a set of answers. It’s a starting point for the questions worth asking in the year ahead. –Jason Roop
