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Boring Charlotte


King_of_queen

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I think Charlotte is more or less as progressive as Raleigh or Winston or Gboro. You can't use Asheville to compare to NC cities because it's an anomaly. Asheville is one of the most progressive cities in the country let alone our state or the South, stemming from the artsy vibe and natural beauty which draws freethinking creatives. Chapel Hill/Carrboro and Durham are smaller towns surrounded by elite universities that typically have a liberal influence on their communities, a completely different setup than Charlotte has.

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I never said Charlotte was the only progressive NC city, while the others are stuck in the dark ages. I never mentioned specific cities either. Sorry if anyone got offended.

You wouldn't mind qualifying that statement, would you? I don't think CLT is less diverse or progressive, however, it is not more so than certain Triad or Triangle communities, or Asheville (and possibly others), IMO. Are any NC cities truly progressive yet?
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....

As for Asheville, it is quite progressive I think most would agree, but awfully homogenous -- other than white mountain folk and white hippies, and white gays and lesbians, there ain't a lot more diversity. Not saying that is bad, I love Asheville and part of my family is from there, but the population mix there has been pretty static for quite some time.

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Obviously, the definition of diversity means different things to different people. Although maligned by many on UP, I find a decent amount of diversity residing uptown. I see plenty of whites, blacks, hispanics when I walk around and know many gays who live there as well. And I think First Ward has been a success story as far as integrating lower and higher income people together in the same neighborhood.

I also find it ironic that people consider the gold standard of diversity to be in the well-established Northeast cities. Upon closer inspection, you can literally draw thick lines around where groups of races and backgrounds physically live in those cities, even along city blocks in the urban areas. Truly, other than riding on public transport or seeing the mix of people at work or in shopping districts, I don't think many neighborhoods are very diverse at all when using the measure of where different groups of people physically reside.

Of course, there are some examples in some of the outer ring Northeast neighborhoods, where people of different ethnic backgrounds actually live side by side but this tends to be the exception rather than the rule.

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  • 2 months later...

We had a fantastic turnout for the Moveon.org war protest and vigil this evening on the corner of East&Scott :ph34r: Several people walking by commented that they could not believe this was happening in Charlotte. The only part of the experience I and many other protestors found annoying and insulting were some of the comments from runners coming down East past us. Several yelled "GET OFF THE SIDEWALK". Excuse me? We have just as much right to stand on the pavement as they do to run down it. A large portion of the crowd was actually standing on the empty Epicurean lot which I avoided doing because we got lectured by someone I assume to be one of the owners last time that we were trespassing on private property and had to stay on the sidewalk. I have to say that all the runners were not rude and we had no problem moving aside and making room for those that politely passed us by. Heck, I run down East several times a week and am never rude to others occupying the sidewalk for various reasons. There is a reason why it's called public property. Some people are just miserable and take it out others unfortunately :angry:

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I've been thinking about reasons why Charlotte is so boring, and my current thoughts are that since most of the city's population consists of married couples with kids who run home right after work to have family time, they set the tone for the city's fun scene. Single people (at least those who aren't working long hours at the banks and law firms) see their co-workers dash home ASAP and thus think running home right after work rather than doing something out and about is the norm, so single people run home too, to watch TV. The single people who moved here from Chicago, NY, Atlanta, etc. and who had fun lives before are just too drained from their prior urban lives to really do much of anything in their spare time.

Thus more urban development won't really make Charlotte less boring; it's just a city dominated by families, who naturally want to spend time together, and fatigued ex-big city types, and that sets the pace of activity.

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The Independence Park protest and most of the others generally fall under The Charlotte Action Center for Justice umbrella. Most of the members also belong to national groups like Moveon.org and Codepink which both have Charlotte chapters so everyone blends. Yesterday's protest at East&Scott was nationally sponsored by Moveon.org and was similar to events nationwide. Codepink Charlotte has weekly vigils for Peace on the corner of East&Scott on Weds from 5:30 to 6:30. I also think it's important to point out that we are not all longhaired wooly radicals. We cover the spectrum of ages,ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds. I agree that Charlotte is dominated by young families but am hopeful that we are attracting newcomers that are more active socially,culturally and politically. Just anectdotally from my perspective living here two years I sense that Charlotte has grown more culturally aware. Our protests have grown in number over the years and generally there seems more interesting "stuff" to do ( everyone likes different "stuff"so it's hard to quantify)Charlotte is shedding it's stodgy image slowly but surely :good:

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Let me add that Republican bankers can be fun and non-boring- look how much fun they have in Manhattan when they head to the bars on 2nd Avenue in the 50s, near their Midtown offices, or SoHo, right north of Wall Street.

Charlotte's just boring, whether it's left-wing or right-wing.

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Funny, I think having a great Zoo, decent shopping, active nightlife, good museums, good restaurants, a fantastic lake, a river greenway that runs right next to downtown, and the cultural vibrancy that comes with a major university isn't all that boring, but what do I know?

For those of you that claim Charlotte (and Columbia, for that matter) is boring, what would you like to see? What would make it less boring?

Follow up question; why don't you start those types of activities?

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Funny, I think having a great Zoo, decent shopping, active nightlife, good museums, good restaurants, a fantastic lake, a river greenway that runs right next to downtown, and the cultural vibrancy that comes with a major university isn't all that boring, but what do I know?

For those of you that claim Charlotte (and Columbia, for that matter) is boring, what would you like to see? What would make it less boring?

Follow up question; why don't you start those types of activities?

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It's sad that for some people, the essence of an exciting city essentially revolves around malls and clubs. It's really a symptom of the deculturation and suburbanization of America; plop down some "high end" stores in malls surrounding by acres and acres of surface parking, expensive chain restaurants, and some Disneyfied clubs, and you've got an authentic city.

For me, it's hard to really gauge how boring or non-boring Charlotte is, because I don't have much experience with other cities that are Charlotte's size, and that's how the city should be appropriately judged. Of course Charlotte will pale in comparison with bigger cities such as Atlanta, Chicago, and DC (just as Columbia will fall short in some areas when compared to a significantly larger city such as Charlotte), but those cities shouldn't be the standard Charlotte is judged by. For those who are more familiar with the 2nd tier Southern cities, such as Nashville, Norfolk, Birmingham, Louisville, Austin, Memphis, Tampa, etc., how would you say Charlotte measures up?

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^I believe that colleges/universities add a certain sense of vibrancy to a downtown, but that's not an absolutely necessity for an exciting downtown; it would certainly provide some balance and variety to the largely corporate drone-dominated downtown of Charlotte. And I'm not a traditional (undergraduate) college student anymore.

Furthermore, many college towns are often cited for their high quality of life, such as Charlottesville and Madison, so I think there's some truth to that (and I don't think college students are behind such studies). Also, the video "Designing a Lively Downtown" that was discussed in the Charlotte subforum used the college town of Ann Arbor as something of a model.

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