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A first time visitor's thoughts of Charlotte


ncbrian

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I had a chance this past weekend to spend some time exploring Charlotte. While it is only a hour or so drive away from Winston-Salem, I have never gotten the opportunity to get off I-77 and see the city for myself. I must say I was fairly impressed with what I saw albeit in a limited fashion. Just a few comments though. The downtown area along Tryon St was fairly hopping with people going to restaurants, to the horse show at Bobcats Arena or just plain walking. With the museums and the library there were things to do there. One thing you could not do apparently is shop. There are few retail stores located at street level with most I assume tucked inside the office towers and open only during weekday business hours. The museums were incredibly busy but I never had the chance to visit any on this trip.

Driving around the neighbourhoods of Charlotte allowed me to discover such gems as the Dilworth neighbourhood. On my next trip, I need to go the NoDa and see what all the fuss is about.

I liked the Fourth Ward area, a thriving residential area of houses and parks adjacent to downtown. Condos are nice and encourages density but compact homes with people who take pride in their home's individuality and gardens can make a difference. Winston had similar areas in its downtown with the West End and is making great strides on using residential development to bring back its downtown.

I like Charlotte and the wife did too comparing it favorably with Jacksonville Florida's downtown and neighbourhood. I may make Charlotte a regular destination from here on out.

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I like Charlotte and the wife did too comparing it favorably with Jacksonville Florida's downtown and neighbourhood. I may make Charlotte a regular destination from here on out.

Yeah I could see that. They are of similar size however Charlotte is actually bigger. JAX is the second largest city geographically, so it includes a lot of people that live far away from the center city. It also doesn't really have any suburbs (other that the surrounding Beachfront cities, Ponte Vedra, Fernandina, etc.)

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that was a very good write up on your, I guess I would call it, blog, and you have a beautiful wife and daughter, I'm happy for you. I'm glad you enjoyed your stay, and come visit us again sometime, we are more than welcome to show you the city that is charlotte, the queen city. :-D

oh yea and there were some good pix on the blog also

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that was a very good write up on your, I guess I would call it, blog, and you have a beautiful wife and daughter, I'm happy for you. I'm glad you enjoyed your stay, and come visit us again sometime, we are more than welcome to show you the city that is charlotte, the queen city. :D

oh yea and there were some good pix on the blog also

Appreciate the compliments :) . And yes it is a blog along with photo galleries and so on

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I enjoyred the mountains of NC the most of the galleries, I also like the pix of downtown winston at night, gives a lot of life to the city when its in the nighttime

When I get around to it this weekend, I will be adding the Charlotte trip pictures. Plenty of neighbourhood and downtown pictures.

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One thing you could not do apparently is shop. There are few retail stores located at street level with most I assume tucked inside the office towers and open only during weekday business hours.

This is probably the biggest complaint I have heard from people visiting Charlotte. I very much so agree with you and I think everyone else on this board would concur. There are however strides in development that will hopefully spark more interest in street level retail, most notably Epicentre.

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Definately agree about the major retail. It is all tucked away in Ovestreet mall. It is actually quite large, but a dead spot hidden on the weekends. I hope you get a chance to visit the city during the week to check it out. It runs from roughly the Hearst to the Wachovia tower complex. It contains hundreds of retailer's, restraunts, and even a couple of dept stores (ie the Small Belk's & JosA banks a Favorite of mine :) + many many others that tend to be for the fancier tastes)

A2

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One thing I see posted here on the forum are the references to Uptown, Midtown, and Downtown and some of the posts seemed to confuse one with the other in particular Uptown with Downtown. Does anyone have a definition of what geographical area does each term apply in regards to Charlotte?

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Uptown and downtown refer to the same thing--the area inside the I-277 loop. Uptown is the designation used by the city, but people still use the traditional term "downtown." Midtown is the area just south of Uptown on Kenilworth--where Midtown Square is being redeveloped.

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Uptown and downtown refer to the same thing--the area inside the I-277 loop. Uptown is the designation used by the city, but people still use the traditional term "downtown." Midtown is the area just south of Uptown on Kenilworth--where Midtown Square is beind redeveloped.

Excellent. Thanks for the information.Hanging around this forum for awhile and I should know the area in Charlotte like a native.

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I just wanted to add that my Stepsister's first experience of Charlotte was this weekend.

Her response to the QC:

Great Neighborhoods, BUT horrible Intestates. If you can believe it she mentioned the whole deal about the lights being out in a solid stretch between the 85 Interchange and 77S all the way through to 277 (which was completely and utterly Dark at 10:30 at night).

She mentioned tha if she would have not been following me to my house that she would have certainly missed the exit because they were completely in the dark.

I turned red as she discussed this since I am so pissed that the state leaves our city in complete darkenss. :angry:

How embarrassing??? :(

All I ever do is prop CLT up to be the wonderful, growing, and exciting city to family in friends out of state only to be humiliated by the cities inadequate system.

She did give the overall place a thumbs up though. She has lived in Philly for most of her life and now is living in B'ham, AL a city half the size of CLT but with lights on the Intersates so it actually appears that you are in a city.

Let's face it when you drive into CLT you have NO clue you are even in a city. Some of the Intestates were as dark as if I were out in a field in the middle of Kansas, but we were in the heart of the city. I am so uterly pissed that I can't even type. I have never been to a city that was as dark as ours. That goes for smaller and larger cities. This is a FACT, not just my observation. We have to take a stand against Raleigh if we are ever going to get OUR money back to light and upgrade OUR roads. NOW. (and don't tell me they don't have the freggin money. They do, they just need to quit STEALING it from OUR Trust fund !!!! Urrrggh....)

A2

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On the other way, this neglect of interstate lights and so on does have some benefits for city living. When I lived in Jacksonville FL, the night sky tended to be washed out because of all the city lights. Living in Winston, albeit a smaller city than Jacksonville, one pleasure is that the night sky can be see in all of its glory.

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