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It reminds me of London, where I lived for over 20 years.
Maybe if the studied London more, they could do even better, in creating a truly walkable environment.
For instance, are they building the public squares? They could find space for them, if the added a story or two. And there might be a gain for everyone.
I'm sure they use Urbanism principles that are true all over the world .Then they implement what is practical for Atlanta.Lets face it,Atlanta will never be London or any of our older iconic cities.It can be become its best by looking toward to the future and developing with the natural human environment .To do that its wise to look at other places to decide what they want versus what you do want.
Atlanta used to be fixated with being the NEW YORK of the South for years. Expecially in the late 1980's and 90's.
Now you rarely hear that or people discussing Atlanta that way.Its because Atlanta discovered it was developing in a way that its identity has become more succinct.
No matter how much these Charlotte posters protest about not being fixated on Atlanta even there Mayor talks about Atlanta:
Quote:
McCoy concludes that downtown Charlotte puts downtown Atlanta to shame,
We knew we did not want to be NYC but we wanted and STILL do wanted more urbanity as its population became more dense.Now like I said earlier,Atlanta has been touted as the model for reversing sprawl instead of creating it as it once was known for.The very fact that if you type in sprawl and Atlanta to "Google",you will see most articles day back to at least more than 6 years ago.The newer ones are about how sprawl is ending in Atlanta.
Charlotte is not urbanizing like Atlanta.Its true it has had more time for better city planning by codes and such but they are not monumental enough.You dont see the in action as much.
Its already been proven inaccurate that Charlotte's counties are all growing as fast.Not just one central county.
Goodness, 61 posts since I last looked at this topic. Yet the central point of my first post was never proven wrong or even addressed. (except as outrage that I'd even suggest it)
Restating it again. I'm glad you boys from ATL are so interested in CLT to make so many posts in our forum. Hopefully you will learn a few things about CLT and how we do things in NC. (If you can get beyond the point that NC does not look to GA for anything) Maybe you can apply it to the GA sprawl that surrounds ATL city. You need to do something.
Outside of this topic, I received a lot of interesting and positive responses to this post from people who thanked me for saying but didn't want to get down into the snake pit that every topic involving ATL seems to turn into when posted in the CLT forum.
Since I see nothing else relevant to Charlotte's future development being posted in these 61 posts, I'm done with this topic too.
Wow.Im not sure if should to dislike you or admire you for your commitment.It is trully a feat to behold.
Yes.I too would be too embarrassed to stick around after making false statements. After all:what else can you come up with?Charlotte is been growing faster so its better than New York,Chicago,DC etc....Oh yes but we are not talking about those cities.
Now maybe we can inject some TRUTH since you are gone.
See You later.
Why all the pictures and obsession?...it isn't necessary. I've stated it 10x in this thread, Charlotte's advantage is the era in which their growth spurt will occur from 2 mill MSA to 4 mill MSA - basically when urbanism is encouraged with many city leaders being much more astitute, engaged and proactive about controlling sprawl. Unfortunately for Atlanta, that spurt occured during an era when many downtown or central core areas were fleeced due the advent of the large enclosed mall and big box stores. That said, Atlanta managed to pull off heavy rail but at this point in the process, the traffic situation is incorrectable and Charlotte has a narrow window of opportunity to offset many of problems plaguing Atlanta. However, no one is denying the fact that Atlanta isn't making progress towards urban pockets which you seem overly obsessed with communicating in this thread....we GET IT....it's larger challenge at this point, but not impossible.
IMO, all indicators show Charlotte's traffic issues will ultimately mirror Atlantas down the road, although it has an opportunity to significantly provide a better planned urban environment than current day Atlanta....and in some areas is doing just that.
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Last edited by SunnyKayak; 02-23-2013 at 12:20 PM..
When Atlanta accomplished many of things it did, it did so as a pioneer in the South with not many other models to learn from--certainly none to learn from regionally. The advantage that Charlotte and other mid-sized regional metros have is that the groundwork has already been laid in certain respects by other cities, Atlanta included, so they don't have to reinvent the wheel.
Still, with that said, I think the only midsized metro in the nation that's truly serious about curbing traffic and encouraging smart growth and development on a large scale is Portland. Charlotte's getting some things right, but it's still a piecemeal approach in comparison. Certainly the pattern of growth and development in Charlotte is closer to that of Atlanta than Portland.
Another point: one way in which Charlotte did NOT learn from Atlanta, and arguably even did worse, was the lack of historic preservation within the urban core. Certainly Atlanta lost some jewels, but even though downtown Atlanta is currently underutilized and faces some challenges that Charlotte doesn't, on the whole it's structurally more intact and urban than uptown Charlotte. In raw numbers Atlanta probably razed more historic structures because it was larger earlier in its history than Charlotte, but proportionally Charlotte razed more of its historic urban fabric and the effects are noticeable today.
Another point: one way in which Charlotte did NOT learn from Atlanta, and arguably even did worse, was the lack of historic preservation within the urban core. Certainly Atlanta lost some jewels, but even though downtown Atlanta is currently underutilized and faces some challenges that Charlotte doesn't, on the whole it's structurally more intact and urban than uptown Charlotte. In raw numbers Atlanta probably razed more historic structures because it was larger earlier in its history than Charlotte, but proportionally Charlotte razed more of its historic urban fabric and the effects are noticeable today.
Who's to say that Charlotte wanted to keep it's historic buildings?
Another point: one way in which Charlotte did NOT learn from Atlanta, and arguably even did worse, was the lack of historic preservation within the urban core. Certainly Atlanta lost some jewels, but even though downtown Atlanta is currently underutilized and faces some challenges that Charlotte doesn't, on the whole it's structurally more intact and urban than uptown Charlotte. In raw numbers Atlanta probably razed more historic structures because it was larger earlier in its history than Charlotte, but proportionally Charlotte razed more of its historic urban fabric and the effects are noticeable today.
Simple fact is Charlotte ruined or defaced Tryon St. to some degree, uprooted a few crown jewels in other areas of uptown/downtown but never had the abundance of historic buildings compared to places like Charleston, Savannah or even Atlanta. If the city had made a conscientious decision to perserve the historic nature of Tryon St. and forced the big banks to continue development on adjacetn streets or near end of the historic boundary, the city would have kept the minimum historic charm it had....a larger version of Elm St. in Greensboro. Otherwise, it never really had the historic or urban fabric of Charlestown, Savannah, Richmond, etc... I think it's misleading to infer that it ever did.
Who's to say that Charlotte wanted to keep it's historic buildings?
That's the point. And it's quite unfortunate that this was the mindset at the time--not just in Charlotte, but everywhere.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Big Aristotle
Simple fact is Charlotte ruined or defaced Tryon St. to some degree, uprooted a few crown jewels in other areas of uptown/downtown but never had the abundance of historic buildings compared to places like Charleston, Savannah or even Atlanta. If the city had made a conscientious decision to perserve the historic nature of Tryon St. and forced the big banks to continue development on adjacetn streets or near end of the historic boundary, the city would have kept the minimum historic charm it had....a larger version of Elm St. in Greensboro. Otherwise, it never really had the historic or urban fabric of Charlestown, Savannah, Richmond, etc... I think it's misleading to infer that it ever did.
I never said or even implied that Charlotte had the historic stock of the most historic cities in the South, or even of a sizable city in the pre-WWII period like Atlanta. I even specifically said that Atlanta had more historic buildings because it was larger earlier in its history than Charlotte was. But there was definitely enough there that, had more of it been preserved, the nature and character of Uptown would be quite different today and I suspect that Uptown would have had a much better street-level retail presence than it does now. When you get a chance, check out this book; it's pretty informative concerning what Charlotte had and what was lost: Charlotte (Then and Now: North Carolina): Don Schick: 9780738542287: Amazon.com: Books
Location: The place where the road & the sky collide
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mutiny77
That's the point. And it's quite unfortunate that this was the mindset at the time--not just in Charlotte, but everywhere.
I never said or even implied that Charlotte had the historic stock of the most historic cities in the South, or even of a sizable city in the pre-WWII period like Atlanta. I even specifically said that Atlanta had more historic buildings because it was larger earlier in its history than Charlotte was. But there was definitely enough there that, had more of it been preserved, the nature and character of Uptown would be quite different today and I suspect that Uptown would have had a much better street-level retail presence than it does now. When you get a chance, check out this book; it's pretty informative concerning what Charlotte had and what was lost: Charlotte (Then and Now: North Carolina): Don Schick: 9780738542287: Amazon.com: Books
You're quite right about that. The only city that bucked the trend was Philadelphia. They followed a plan laid out by Kevin Bacon's father, Edmund. The city was the laughing stock of the whole country. It did mean displacing lots of poor people, who were helped by the city & the rehabbing was all done privately, by builders, to strict codes. It took decades. No one was going to follow that model if they had a choice, at that time. However, Society Hill's revitalization proved to other cities that rehabbing can & will work in this country & other cities are doing it now. Unfortunately many historic buildings were lost all over the country. That isn't a Charlotte vs Atlanta thing. It was nation-wide.
Charlotte is now going to be working with the whole region to develop strategies for development.
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