74 replies to this topic

[brianrri]

Justadude, on May 28 2008, 05:35 PM, said:

It seems to me that the only fair comparison is apples-apples. Charlotte can certainly learn from a European city, but it can never emulate one. I am more interested in its progress relative to other cities of its size and general orientation -- cities like Nashville, Norfolk, Austin, Indianapolis and Jacksonville. When you take historic development patterns into account (compensating for Charlotte's late arrival on the scene and lack of capital/university town status), growth in and around the city compares pretty favorably to its peers.

The biggest setback for Charlotte is that it has simply never been positioned to be a big city until very recently. It doesn't have the infrastructure or cultural fabric that one would expect in an older city its size, and it doesn't have the benefit of major public institutions to anchor its growth. All things considered, for it to be anything other than a total mess is pretty impressive.

Charlotte is a nice place and I expect it to become much nicer in the future. Personally the European model of what constitutes an ideal city does not fully move me. I have visited London, Amsterdam, Paris, Brussels, Frankfort, ect. All nice, vibrant cities indeed with a lot to see and to do, howvever, my ideal of a "perfect city" would not be anyone of them. I lived in Cape Town, South Africa for several years and that place to me is the standard for how a city should be. Cape Town has everything! Urbanity, beaches, Culture with a capital "C", beauty, retail, diversity, history and so on. When I returned to the States and was deciding on where to relocate back to the States, the thought of almost every US city depressed me after Cape Town. But Charlotte seemed good for me and my family and after considering other cities (cities which most people rave about but proved to be highly disappointing to us when visiting) we choose Charlotte and are still, after three years happy with our choice. Is Charlotte the perfect city? Absolutely not, but I think it is moving in the right direction. As far as comparing to European cities, again, some of my European associates love places like Charlotte where they say there is open space and room to move around where not everyone is on top of each other. But I digress, I forgot that this is Forum is for true urbanites and I just a newbie here giving his two-cents.

[monsoon]

brianrri, on May 28 2008, 06:06 PM, said:

....But I digress, I forgot that this is Forum is for true urbanites and I just a newbie here giving his two-cents.

As a newbie you were doing fine until you made this disingenuous remark. We are not elitists here everyone is entitled to offer up their opinion as long as they don't insult others.

[brianrri]

^^^

Monsoon, I am really sorry. I did not say this in a sarcastic way at all. I added the last part of that post beacuse I wa thinking that maybe I was "out of my league" with the more experienced, knowleagable posters on here. No insult intended at all.

[Spartan]

^You're doing fine, buddy. Just keep posting.

I think that everyone here wants to see great things for this city, and sometimes it seems like others are working against it (be it intentional or not). Outside of uptown and the 1st ring suburbs, you don't have much in the way of real urban development. You have some half-assed attempts (Ayrsley) and some good efforts (Birkdale, Baxter), but none of these really live up to what we think of as good urban places. IMO the people who post here simply have a very high standard that we want to see our city reach. We all see what other, larger cities are doing right, and we see the opposite happening here, and its sort of a "what the hell" kind of moment when you see it happening.

On a slightly separate issue: IMO the reason that pedestrian activity is so important is because in an urban place, pedestrians are the most important type of traveler. Unfortunately they are also the most fickle, and the hardest to please. If all buildings do not include a good pedestrian element (including sidewalks and general design), then it is not urban, and will never function as such. This element is particularly important in urbanizing neighborhoods.

[krazeeboi]

monsoon, on May 28 2008, 01:06 PM, said:

Earlier you said it wasn't fair to compare Charlotte to other cities that have better development. Now you are saying it is fair to compare Charlotte to these places to justify bad development. It would seem to me that you can't have it both ways.

I was speaking of the way the cores of cities that matured pre-WWII drastically differ with those that matured post-WWII. The built environment of the inner cores of both cities are quite different. Both types of cities, however, sprawled at the edges post-WWII, and in that regard, the styles of development for both cities are similar and the comparison is justified. Not all cities have dense cores with a mature historic fabric, but you'll be sure to find sprawl in all of 'em.

[monsoon]

Charlotte is one of the oldest cities in the nation having been incorporated in the late 1700s. It had a thriving "urban core" for centuries that included a rather extensive trolley network. So I don't understand your statement about pre-WWII vs post-WWII "urban cores". Charlotte was here long before WWII.

[krazeeboi]

monsoon, on May 29 2008, 07:43 AM, said:

Charlotte is one of the oldest cities in the nation having been incorporated in the late 1700s. It had a thriving "urban core" for centuries that included a rather extensive trolley network. So I don't understand your statement about pre-WWII vs post-WWII "urban cores". Charlotte was here long before WWII.

I'm not talking about Charlotte existing pre-WWII. I'm talking about its urban core maturing pre-WWII. Charlotte mostly developed in an age of sprawl and did not have a dense, built-out core prior to WWII.

[monsoon]

krazeeboi, on May 29 2008, 09:07 AM, said:

......Charlotte mostly developed in an age of sprawl and did not have a dense, built-out core prior to WWII.

That's simply not true. I would not take what we have now to be an indication as to what was here prior to 1945.

[atlrvr]

Annexation Map

This map shows the relative size of Charlotte over time....I think it's fair to say that Charlotte was relatively small as of the late 1800's when much of the urban form that exists in many peer cities was built.

[Justadude]

I don't think it's as simple as taking snapshots of pre- and post-WWII Charlotte and asking why they don't look the same. For one thing, WWII wasn't a clear starting-point for the population boom -- the real gains took place later, from the late '50s to present. Also, if we are going to make apples-apples comparisons, nearly every "peer" city of Charlotte's was exponentially bigger up until fairly recently (Austin being the notable exception). For example, Indianapolis has been roughly 10 times larger than Charlotte for most of the past 150 years -- that makes an enormous difference in the built environment, especially in areas of high density where the infrastructure and building stock are constantly being replaced and (ideally) upgraded.

Then there is, as always, the simple fact that Charlotte was not home to a port, state capital, major university, major corporation, or much of anything else besides a railroad junction until the 1960s. We have to be careful not to romanticize the quality and signficance of downtown prior to that period. Even though it was clearly more vibrant than today in terms of gross street-level activity, the "historic" downtown area wasn't notable for much of anything and certainly didn't compare to downtown Nashville or Indianapolis. As recently as the early '60s Second Ward was a slum with lean-to houses and dirt roads -- hard to imagine what would be there now if it had been preserved. Most of 3rd Ward and much of 4th Ward was single-story warehouse buildings which, while aesthetically more interesting than parking lots, would have been little more than free housing for vagrants for 20-30 years. Even now, in a forum very friendly to preservation interests, we are debating whether the Polk Building was really significant enough to be worth saving, or if its value is merely sentimental on account of the fact that it hasn't disintegrated of its own accord. Imagine Polk-like building lining Tryon St. rather than major corporate HQs -- would any of us have turned back BoA in order to preserve a two-story general store on the Square?

I guess my point is that Charlotte's growth, for better or worse, reflects the changing priorities of each generation. The urban renewal of the '60s was intended to address severe flaws in the layout of the center city -- poor street and sidewalk infrastructure, poverty-level conditions through much of downtown, an industrial district that was rapidly emptying out and becoming a public hazard, and the transition to a white-collar economy. While the results of development from that period forward haven't always been ideal to urbanists like ourselves, they are logical in the context of 20th-century American growth patterns and Charlotte's specific circumstances.

[mshook]

Spartan, on May 28 2008, 11:24 PM, said:

On a slightly separate issue: IMO the reason that pedestrian activity is so important is because in an urban place, pedestrians are the most important type of traveler.

I wish everyone else felt this way. I was hit by a passenger side mirror of a city work truck yesterday while crossing Fifth and Tryon.

[krazeeboi]

monsoon, on May 29 2008, 09:18 AM, said:

That's simply not true. I would not take what we have now to be an indication as to what was here prior to 1945.

I never said it did; we're always lamenting the historic stock that did not survive the wrecking ball in Charlotte. However, don't pretend like the city had tons of historic buildings before 1945 either because it didn't. Consider cities that are now considered Charlotte's peers that had mature, built-out cores prior to WWII, like Kansas City and Cincinnati--or even cities that are smaller than Charlotte that had highly developed cores before WWII like Charleston. There's no way in the world that Charlotte's historic stock could even remotely begin to compare with what those cities were working with.

[monsoon]

krazeeboi, on May 29 2008, 02:44 PM, said:

,,,,There's no way in the world that Charlotte's historic stock could even remotely begin to compare with what those cities were working with.

Is this your opinion?

This list of photos would indicate otherwise. See here. And there are plenty more like this.

[krazeeboi]

Monsoon, those photos only prove that Charlotte had historic buildings. We all know that. I'm talking about the extensiveness of the built environment and historic stock for Charlotte vs. the cities I cited as examples. I find it hard to believe that someone would make the argument that the built environment of Charlotte's core in the early 1900's was just as extensive and developed as the cores of cities like Kansas City and Cincinnati.

Historic panorama of Charlotte, 1918:


Historic panorama of Kansas City, 1907:


Historic panorama of Cincinnati, 1908:


Historic panorama of Louisville, ca. 1910:

[1979Heel]

My memories of Charlotte date back nearly 50 years and I cannot think of anything that was demolished that I miss. I agree that historic texture and context is best and important to sustain a city's identity. It's just that there wasn't much here that really added identity. The few things that did-the 1920s-era city hall and county courthouse, the Johnston Building, First Presbyterian, St.Peter's Episcopal and St Peter's RC, the reconstituted First Baptist, First Methodist and 4th Ward, that's about it. I don't miss the old Belk store (which was actually Efird's and Belk fused together) nor the old Woolworth's, nor the old Kresge (it ALWAYS had a bad smell inside.)

Second Ward was a thriving community but much of it was slums-real, ramshackle, lack-of-plumbing -and -roofing slums. I don't know that the wholesale razing of it was the best answer but leaving it as it was would have been disastrous.

Not everything that was built is good, but it definitely beats what previously existed. I'll take the Pelli building, the Hearst Tower and the Blumenthal Center anyday over the Belk and Woolworth stores.

Edited by 1979Heel, 30 May 2008 - 02:36 PM.