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Favorite Neighborhood/Part of Columbia?


Hybrid0NE

same as title...  

24 members have voted

  1. 1. same as title...

    • Central Business District (Main St. Area)
      5
    • Vista
      3
    • Five Points
      0
    • USC
      1
    • Shandon
      4
    • West Columbia
      0
    • Cayce
      1
    • The Mill Villages (Olympia/Granby/Whaley)
      0
    • Earlewood
      4
    • Eau Claire
      0
    • Arcadia Lakes
      0
    • Forest Acres
      2
    • Dutch Square (everthing from the saluda/broad confluence to I-20)
      1
    • Dentsville-Spring Valley
      1
    • Irmo
      1
    • Lexington
      0
    • Lake Murray
      0
    • Lower Richland
      0
    • Sandhills Area (Clemson Road corridor)
      1
    • Blythewood
      0


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Aw, no Rosewood?

I like the USC/5 Points/Wales Garden/Shandon (Devine St)/Roasewood area. That is where I spent the majorty of my time while in Cola. The Vista is nice too though :)

I have to give a plug for Lexington though. The town itself has some potential, and quite possibly has more wisteria than any other place I have been in my life.

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Hey, what about historic Cottontown? I think that's a pretty cool classic-looking neighborhood. Elmwood Park is cool too.

Forest Acres reminds me somewhat of of the neighborhoods surrounding SouthPark in Charlotte.

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I would say Forest Acres is very, very similar to the SouthPark/Myers Park/Providence areas of Charlotte - very similar demographics and development patterns. Most folks in these areas are older, established middle-to-upper middle class professionals, kids are typically of high school age or older. Politically and culturally these areas tend to be fiscally conservative and socially moderate - independent-minded, in other words. The patina on the aging but well-maintained 1960s-1970s era homes denote a grown-up suburban sophistication, and so you see relatively upscale retail operations that cater to well-educated baby boomers (SouthPark Mall in Charlotte, EarthFare/Fresh Market and a (hopefully) re-tooled Richland Mall in Forest Acres, numerous white linen/ethnic/upscale restaurants in or near both areas).

Not a lot of young, new families to the extent you would find in Irmo, Lexington, NE Richland (or conversely in Union County, Huntersville/Concord/Cornelius, or Fort Mill/Rock Hill around Charlotte).

Comparable areas in cities I know: in Washington, Forest Acres reminds me of Bethesda/Chevy Chase in Maryland, Arlington/Falls Church in Virginia. In Chicago, it reminds me of North Shore suburbs like Glenview, Wilmette, and Northbrook, and west-side suburbs like Elmhurst or LaGrange.

Spatially, these mature, inner-ring 'burbs are kind of "urban pivot points", strategically well-located between the traditional CBD/downtown, closer-in "hip" urban neighborhoods (think Five Points/Shandon in Columbia, Dilworth in Charlotte), and the semi-mature burbs before you reach the exurban fringe(Matthews/Pineville in Charlotte, Dentsville/Spring Valley in Columba). These areas are convincingly convenient to "everything".

Other area in Columbia vaguely similar are St. Andrews and West Columbia/Cayce, but I think Forest Acres wins hands down on the sophistication factor.

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The problem with Forest Acres is that there is no real entertainment or commercial space except on Beltline and Forest around the mall, which is not saying much. The Midtown project in FA is goign to be awsome to follow., I could potentially put FA on the map :)

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If I were to do a top 5 it would be:

Forest Acres (i live there now and grew up there)

Central Business District (i would desperately love to get a job in a skyscraper)

USC Area (best 4 years of my life)

Rosewood/Shandon (Lived there for 2 years during college)

TIE 5 Points & The Vista (darn good places to eat and hang out)

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  • 2 weeks later...

I can't vote for the CBD yet until Main gets its act together. The street simply doesn't represent a growing metropolitan area approaching 700,000. I can't wait until the streetscaping is done so that more important issues about the street can be addressed. So until then, I hereby designate Greenville's Main Street as "South Carolina's Main Street." ;)

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krazeeboi are you trying to get yourself evicted from the Columbia forum? You know you can't make a comment like that without any backlash. I'm not sure if Main Street is our signature street anyway. Gervais Street which turns into State seems to be our most well known. Anyway it's not like any of our cities will spawn a Peachtree, Broadway, 5th Ave, Michigan Ave (Chicago) or Wilshire/Hollywood Blvd (Los Angeles)

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Hey, I'm just being real man; I'm really critical of Main Street because I like the city as a whole. A revitalized Main Street will do WONDERS for Columbia. And I'm not asking for a Peachtree, 5th Ave, Wilshire, etc. I just want Main Street Columbia to be the best Main Street that it can be.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I think that every corridor/neighborhood has its qualities and unique characteristics, (ex. Forest Acres has the SouthPark feel, wonderful trees, pedestrian feel; Irmo is the retail hotspot; Vista area has the restaurants; 5 points has the unique boutiques and clubs) but by far i think Clemson Rd/Hardscrabble/Blythewood area is by far the best......probably because i grew up there and im a suburbanite all the way.....the Village at Sandhills is coming along wonderfully and we seem to have just about the same aminities Irmo/Harbison has without the half a mile(not even half a mile) traffic that harbison has............we have several corridors that ease the traffic.......Clemson Rd, North Springs rd., Hardscrabble(which is the only one with a major problem around 5pm and is supposedly going to be widened who knows when), Killian Rd, Sparkleberry Rd, and of course, the almighty Two Notch :D

P.S.-We have a Moe's Southwest Grill and a Ben & Jerry's as well as the only 24 hour Bi-Lo......5 points/Devine St. eat your heart out! :P

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I think that every corridor/neighborhood has its qualities and unique characteristics, (ex. Forest Acres has the SouthPark feel, wonderful trees, pedestrian feel; Irmo is the retail hotspot; Vista area has the restaurants; 5 points has the unique boutiques and clubs) but by far i think Clemson Rd/Hardscrabble/Blythewood area is by far the best......probably because i grew up there and im a suburbanite all the way.....the Village at Sandhills is coming along wonderfully and we seem to have just about the same aminities Irmo/Harbison has without the half a mile(not even half a mile) traffic that harbison has............we have several corridors that ease the traffic.......Clemson Rd, North Springs rd., Hardscrabble(which is the only one with a major problem around 5pm and is supposedly going to be widened who knows when), Killian Rd, Sparkleberry Rd, and of course, the almighty Two Notch :D

P.S.-We have a Moe's Southwest Grill and a Ben & Jerry's as well as the only 24 hour Bi-Lo......5 points/Devine St. eat your heart out! :P

Give it time. It will get much worse if things keep growing the way they are. Sandhill isn't up to full capactiy yet either.... The difference is that Harbison is a very short road, whereas Two Notch goes all the way to Camden. That promotes leapgfrogging development which has caused the decline of lower Two Notch near Parklane/Decker area as the sprawl spreads further out. So you can revel in the glory that is there now, but in 20 years it will likely not the case. You may have to move to Camden to continue the life you enjoy now. Irmo has grown past the commercial areas (which used to be on the edge of develpoment, much like Sandhill, and has pretty much filled in that area between the Rivers and the Lake, and sice it is a smaller road, it will naturally be more congested, as you pointed out.

In the mean time, the Vista and Five Points/Devine will continue to grow on themselves and will probably have most of the amenities that any suburban area has now (though it has most of them now). And the great part is that you could walk it all without a car (saving gas = $$$ !), and you won't have to move to keep up with the Joneses. The Vista already has all of the amenities you have mentioned except the 24 hour stores, but that is not a significant factor to anything.

Not trying to be a downer or anything, but I feel obligated to point these things out :) Obviously the suburban areas are appealing, otherwise they would not be growing like mad.

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Let me know when Downtown is getting a Barnes & Nobles or Borders anytime soon........or a Office Depot or a Banana Republic.......thanks! :rofl:

Let me know how much you waste in gas every year by living the suburban sprawl existence.

BTW, Five Points has an Office Depot. In the Vista, check out Savoy on Lady Street or all of the stores in Five Points, they put Banana Republic to shame. Who cares about chain stores, they're everywhere. As far as books, B&N and Borders can't hold a candle to the Richland County Public Library. I'll be laughig all the way to the bank when gas prices reach $5 a gallon and a tank still lasts me for 3 weeks.

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DT Chicago and Boston I can understand, but I think you're WAAAYYY overstating the case for DT Charlotte. It's nice and all, but even the locals complain about the lack of retail DT. None of those stores you've mentioned have a stand-alone location within the I-277 loop (that I know of anyway). I understand you're enamored with the city and all, attending school there, but please--give it a rest.

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DT Chicago and Boston I can understand, but I think you're WAAAYYY overstating the case for DT Charlotte. It's nice and all, but even the locals complain about the lack of retail DT. None of those stores you've mentioned have a stand-alone location within the I-277 loop (that I know of anyway). I understand you're enamored with the city and all, attending school there, but please--give it a rest.

Amen to that; Charlotte is so overrated. Boston and Chicago are not.

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