Perception of Charlotte Nationwide

[eastsider]

14 minutes ago, Hushpuppy321 said:

I think it’d be bad optics (Dem Governor, Dem City Council) if the RNC doesn’t happen here.  Trump will use that to inflame passions and the City will look bad.  

Same government was in place when Charlotte was the only city that bid on it, of course the current occupant of the White House always plays the victim card. There will be no black eye, it will be forgotten in no time.

[Guest]

4 hours ago, kermit said:

Ain't nothing scientific about any of these published lists but I think this is pretty spot-on. I have been to nearly all of these places, the only one I might half-halfheartedly argue with is Lexington.

I do think that Rocky Mount is in a dead heat with Gastown.

 

 

Warner Robbins, GA would like. you to swing by its dilapidated doublewide for a word.  I Also had fun in Lexington, but might have been bourbon. My wife and I crashed, and were subsequently kicked out of a 50th high school reunion. in retrospect, that only happens when you are bourbon drunk and bored in a crapty town.

Edited May 27, 2020 by Guest

[Hushpuppy321]

5 minutes ago, kermit said:

Yea, I agree. Just cancelling outright is a bad plan. But allowing a full capacity convention to occur (barring some miracle in infection rates) against the advice of state epidemiologists is an even worse plan. I think the state is right in asking the RNC for meeting plans for several scenarios. If Cooper throws open the doors to republicans  tomorrow (but events like Panthers games still don't have a green light) then we are going to look superbad.

Ideally Cooper says "I can't give you any guarantees yet" and donald throws a tantrum and moves everything to a cruse ship.

But what do you guys think about the lost financial impact To the City if it is moved (probably a low possibility of that)?

2 minutes ago, eastsider said:

Same government was in place when Charlotte was the only city that bid on it, of course the current occupant of the White House always plays the victim card. There will be no black eye, it will be forgotten in no time.

Trump is painting himself and the RNC into the proverbial Political Corner by grandstanding - his 1 Week Ultimatum to Gov Cooper.

Edited May 27, 2020 by Hushpuppy321

[kermit]

1 minute ago, Hushpuppy321 said:

But what do you guys think about the lost financial impact To the City if it is moved (probably a low possibility of that)?

That is certainly a downside. I am just saying if we decide to deny science in order to host a full capacity convention in the middle of a pandemic then the damage to our reputation will be far greater in future economic development than any short-term returns from hosting a meeting.

[CltFlyer]

2 hours ago, tozmervo said:

Yeah, but that urban growth boundary has done squat to keep it from feeling like one of the most sprawly cities in the South. The countryside is indeed gorgeous, but the city has - IMO - little going for it otherwise. There's one decent urban neighborhood surrounded by miles of suburban sprawl and shopping centers. 

As a current resident of Lexington, I have to disagree.  While there is a decent amount of urban sprawl in certain areas, the city has largely been able to maintain the horse/bourbon culture imho.  Also, the urban sprawl that is  present has fairly well defined boundaries  compared to several other southern cities.

[Norm2]

I highly doubt that the RNC will be moved. There are too many logistics and no one else is willing to host the convention. I believe Charlotte will still host the RNC, but it will be scaled back.

[CLT>]

3 hours ago, tozmervo said:

Yeah, but that urban growth boundary has done squat to keep it from feeling like one of the most sprawly cities in the South. The countryside is indeed gorgeous, but the city has - IMO - little going for it otherwise. There's one decent urban neighborhood surrounded by miles of suburban sprawl and shopping centers. 

Amen.

Night and Day between Louisville and Lexington. The areas around LEX are nicer, but the city has few redeeming factors. Even the  UK campus is kind of sprawly (not a knock on UK as a university) and Rupp might be one of the ugliest of the 'famed' college basketball arenas, from the outside.

[CltFlyer]

35 minutes ago, CLT> said:

Amen.

Night and Day between Louisville and Lexington. The areas around LEX are nicer, but the city has few redeeming factors. Even the  UK campus is kind of sprawly (not a knock on UK as a university) and Rupp might be one of the ugliest of the 'famed' college basketball arenas, from the outside.

It's honestly hard to tell where the UK campus begins and ends.  Honestly, unless you are walking around the heart of campus, it really doesn't have a college campus feel to it.  

[KJHburg]

and I can think of worst cities in NC than Gastonia it is not that bad.     Remember this is one persons opinion.   Mattsurelee? 

[JacksonH]

On 5/26/2020 at 4:42 PM, KJHburg said:

Wow Lexington KY is my favorite city in that state with all the horse farms surrounding it and an urban growth boundary  Nice downtown too.  Must be a UK hater. 

I agree.  That surprised me, too.  I was there many years ago for a wedding and also went to the horse races.  We stayed at a nice lake cabin and hung out at a pretty decent and lively bar downtown.  I thought it was a pretty town.

[kermit]

Last night’s CMPD gassing ambush has made it into the national press:

Quote

Protests were peaceful Tuesday, with provocations largely coming from police

...Police in Charlotte, North Carolina, also used tear gas to break up protests they said had led to them “being assaulted with bottles, rocks, and chemical agents.” Protesters disputed this narrative, however, telling the Charlotte Agenda that protests were entirely peaceful until police fired pepper balls, flash bangs, and tear gas at them, an assertion the Agenda’s Katie Peralta and Andrew Weber note appears to be supported by video posted to social media.

“All of us gathered to show that Charlotte will be the city that does things peacefully and we demonstrated it,” protester Edwin Gonzalez said. “But CMPD betrayed us and led us into a trap.”...

https://www.vox.com/2020/6/3/21278979/protests-george-floyd-june-2

and now to the Post

(No NC!)

Edited June 3, 2020 by kermit

[CLT>]

More our perception of ourselves, but the new South End branding () banners along the RailTrail read
SOUTHEND 
Charlotte, NC.

Did no one tell CCCP of our complex?

[Hushpuppy321]

With a scaled back RNC can Charlotte truly boast anymore of being in only a handful of Cities to have hosted conventions for both parties?

[Richhamleigh, DC]

5 hours ago, Hushpuppy321 said:

With a scaled back RNC can Charlotte truly boast anymore of being in only a handful of Cities to have hosted conventions for both parties?

Absolutely, and it could be if a certain narcissist in Washington gave an actual damn about people. 

[kermit]

Braxton Winston with an opinion piece in the Washington Post today:

Quote

Our police chief has argued that without chemical agents, police will be forced to use batons to break skin and bones. But that is not an acceptable answer to the people of Charlotte. What’s more, comments like that hurtfully evoke Bull Connor’s German shepherds and fire hoses. If the current police chief, or the new chief set to take over in September, cannot figure out how to deal with human beings without the tactics of violence and fear, the people that make up this city will be here, step by step, to show him how to deal with us as the sentient beings we are.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/10/protester-i-was-teargassed-lawmaker-im-working-end-its-use/

[nakers2]

I know there’s an RNC thread, but I feel like this belongs here, note the lack of “NC” 

I think long term this will actually be a good thing for the city, NC has long been painted as a backwater by those who are ignorant, having a governor with some spine is nice, usually the ones that stand in the schoolhouse door, so to speak, are not doing so for the best reasons.

[Hushpuppy321]

1 hour ago, nakers2 said:

I know there’s an RNC thread, but I feel like this belongs here, note the lack of “NC” 

I think long term this will actually be a good thing for the city, NC has long been painted as a backwater by those who are ignorant, having a governor with some spine is nice, usually the ones that stand in the schoolhouse door, so to speak, are not doing so for the best reasons.

I like that there’s no “NC” after Charlotte but it still stings to me (and I’m sure the CLT Business community) to lose the major Economic Impact it would have been.

[kermit]

Washington Post reports on a new NBER paper that examines Charlotte school resegregation and eventual political party affiliation. (One of the authors is a former economist at UNCC). The paper found that students were less likely to eventually register as republicans if they had more opportunities for interactions with minority students while in school.

I am not sure the finding is much of a surprise and, in general I am unimpressed with the methodological rigor of economics studies like this, but I thought the use of Charlotte busing Changes as instrumentation was interesting. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/06/12/white-students-exposed-more-minority-peers-are-less-likely-register-republicans/

Edited June 12, 2020 by kermit

[markeckert]

Not sure if you guys remember this, but I do...

When McCrory passed HB2, we lost company relocations, investments, and created a huge stain on our city/state for years. It was an international embarrassment.

Hosting the RNC convention (especially in today’s climate) would be an economic short term win, for a long term huge loss. Forget any progressive company (and non progressive company’s who want to save face) considering a relocation or substantial investment here. I am SO thrilled for the sake of our economy, they moved to Jacksonville. 

Also, Vice recently did a documentary about CLT. It’s VERY good, and Vice additionally holds a lot of weight to us millennials. Definitely changed / enhanced a lot of perceptions out there nationally. Suggest you all watch this if you have some time. They dove really deep into the city’s history and where we are today. Really well done IMO.

 

Edited June 19, 2020 by markeckert

[Norm2]

2 hours ago, markeckert said:

Not sure if you guys remember this, but I do...

When McCrory passed HB2, we lost company relocations, investments, and created a huge stain on our city/state for years. It was an international embarrassment.

Hosting the RNC convention (especially in today’s climate) would be an economic short term win, for a long term huge loss. Forget any progressive company (and non progressive company’s who want to save face) considering a relocation or substantial investment here. I am SO thrilled for the sake of our economy, they moved to Jacksonville. 

Also, Vice recently did a documentary about CLT. It’s VERY good, and Vice additionally holds a lot of weight to us millennials. Definitely changed / enhanced a lot of perceptions out there nationally. Suggest you all watch this if you have some time. They dove really deep into the city’s history and where we are today. Really well done IMO.

 

I just watched this documentary. Seeing that man be murdered by police in the Burger King parking lot was highly disturbing.

[Nick2]

2 hours ago, markeckert said:

Not sure if you guys remember this, but I do...

When McCrory passed HB2, we lost company relocations, investments, and created a huge stain on our city/state for years. It was an international embarrassment.

Hosting the RNC convention (especially in today’s climate) would be an economic short term win, for a long term huge loss. Forget any progressive company (and non progressive company’s who want to save face) considering a relocation or substantial investment here. I am SO thrilled for the sake of our economy, they moved to Jacksonville. 

Also, Vice recently did a documentary about CLT. It’s VERY good, and Vice additionally holds a lot of weight to us millennials. Definitely changed / enhanced a lot of perceptions out there nationally. Suggest you all watch this if you have some time. They dove really deep into the city’s history and where we are today. Really well done IMO.

 

Man that was fantastic. He really covered a lot of topics and talked to a huge number of local officials. And it painted Charlotte in a pretty positive light. 

If y'all have the time for it, watch this video!

[ertley]

2 hours ago, markeckert said:

Not sure if you guys remember this, but I do...

When McCrory passed HB2, we lost company relocations, investments, and created a huge stain on our city/state for years. It was an international embarrassment.

Hosting the RNC convention (especially in today’s climate) would be an economic short term win, for a long term huge loss. Forget any progressive company (and non progressive company’s who want to save face) considering a relocation or substantial investment here. I am SO thrilled for the sake of our economy, they moved to Jacksonville. 

Also, Vice recently did a documentary about CLT. It’s VERY good, and Vice additionally holds a lot of weight to us millennials. Definitely changed / enhanced a lot of perceptions out there nationally. Suggest you all watch this if you have some time. They dove really deep into the city’s history and where we are today. Really well done IMO.

 

There were multiple issues discussed in this report, and I certainly don't have answers or even suggestions for all of them, but I do for one: School Funding. The fundamental problem with equity in education, and the equitable funding of schools in this country--whence so much of self-segregation in cities and towns comes--is that we fund schools by property taxes. We have to find another way. End school funding from property tax revenue, and you kill the root of so many of the problems they talk about here, and that we all talk about.

Logically, in a 'meta' sense, why SHOULD schools be funded by property taxes--at least residential ones? I know the basic argument is that education serves the greater good and is a basis for economic growth, thus residential property taxes for schools, but clearly we don't really believe, or truly operate, under that premise, or our schools would all be equally funded. A house's value and thus its property tax revenue shouldn't translate to more school funding for the children from those houses or neighborhoods. It's fundamentally not right, if you believe in public education. Furthermore, because so many residences don't have school aged children, you have a fundamental built in resistance to property taxes among much of the population that's never going to change, and we're going to be fighting these funding battles for generations to come, with new "innovations" tried and tried again.  If people really care about this, and want true, universal, equitable, quality education, we have to fund schools from taxation sources other than residential property taxes.

My personal opinion--and I know this would meet with hella resistance, but I truly believe it's the right answer, even if it never will be realized--is that the federal government needs to provide the absolute majority of FUNDING for schools; I realize actual increased control of curriculum and standards will invite implacable furor. The reason we're in this morass is precisely because states, counties and municipalities want to exert control over education, so they've demanded the control that comes with their own funding. Especially in this current climate, I bet you can make a strong argument that a lot of this desire for local control--and thus a f----d up funding mechanism--is rooted in racism and segregationist motivations. Although I'm in favor of better, stronger national standards (because I personally think too many of them are deficient or retrograde in their approach), to make this work I'd be willing to let communities and states still have control over things like curriculum and standards, to get this done, because just shifting the funding to the federal level will alone have a transformative effect.  

Just think for a second of what Charlotte and every other city would look like if schools were funded by the federal government, on a per capita child basis. The argument that Puckett is making, which has some merits (although he's missing the bigger picture), would have to be addressed: Administrators would have to focus on improving schools' instruction, and making education fit the needs of actual students, and not by shifting students around to schools to improve testing averages. States and municipalities wouldn't have to bother themselves with school taxation issues, and all the distractions and problems they bring, and could focus on actual education issues. More importantly, it would make affluent parents, often those with political might and will, to see how well (or not) schools are funded, and get funding improved if need be, instead of now, being able to ignore lack of funding in schools outside your own district.

We're seeing racial lines already begin to blur in cities, and I think per capita child federal funding would accelerate it, and could also (potentially) encourage more neighborhood schools. People certainly wouldn't automatically, reflexively associate richer neighborhoods with having richer (i.e. better) schools, because they wouldn't be. Neighborhoods with fewer school aged children would have less overall funding, and neighborhoods with more school aged children--regardless of race--would have more, with city officials actually having to work harder to get more younger families to move into single family, established neighborhoods, to increase school funding. That right there is a major paradigm shift.

Universal equitable federal funding on a per capita (child) basis would disentangle so many of the problems we currently face, that we're addressing in myriad ways--and with successes--but we're pruning and pruning and pruning this bitter tree, and we just need to pull it out by the roots. 

I realize this belongs in the Political Digression thread, so I'm going to copy it there, to prevent potential off topic digression here.   

[cltheel.sdl]

Does CMS apportion their budget to school zones based on the property tax base in each school zone?

[southslider]

3 hours ago, cltheel.sdl said:

Does CMS apportion their budget to school zones based on the property tax base in each school zone?

No, it's bad enough they apportion their students that way.

[thenewkage95]

I happened to be reading an article about a couple of my favorite artists attending some of the protests and they incorrectly said that one attended a protest in Charlottesville, NC. I hated that they didn’t do a little more research although the website is allaboutlaughs.com, so not the most reliable news source I suppose. Either way it was a little disheartening.



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