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In 1940 Charlotte had 146 churches for 100,000 people. Do you think Philadelphia had 146 churches when their population was 100,000? This is 1 church for every 684 people.
Well Philadelphia hit 100K people a full century before Charlotte; at that time there weren't nearly as many denominations in existence. But to be fair, the proliferation of churches in a Southern city like Charlotte has almost everything to do with the decentralized, fractured nature of evangelical Protestantism as opposed to the more centralized nature of mainline Protestantism and Catholicism which has a much greater presence in Northern cities like Philly. But it's a pretty interesting stat nonetheless; I wonder what it looks like for other Southern cities historically and presently?
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This list has us at #8 based on current counts. Philadelphia isn't on the list. If we had maintained the same rate we would have been in the top 3 in the country. It's a reputation earned based on truth of churches per person, not just colloquial banter.
Definitely not surprised Philly isn't on the list; several of its beautiful, historic churches no longer house active congregations.
I never said that Charlotte's reputation as a "churchy" city was just colloquial banter, but that other cities that haven't officially been known as the "city of churches" probably have been known as such colloquially. I get your overall point, but I don't think it really strengthens Charlotte's identity in a region already known for having lots of churches.
Southbound - I would be interested to hear more about Charlotte's ties to Philadelphia's original settlers.
Mutiny - I think we agree.
Charlotte means a lot of things to a lot of different people indeed.
Central NC was largely settled by the Scots-Irish, protestant Scots who the english crown had resettled in northern ireland. They began leaving in the early 1700's, mostly arriving in Philadelphia, and as ensuing waves of immigrants came, they began moving west, and then south, into Virginia, NC and SC on what became known as the Great Philadelphia Wagon Road.
In Charlotte, the immigration brought names that are familiar even now, such as Polk, Davidson, Alexander and Spratt, among others. Its also why Charlotte is such a Presbyterian city.
This is true, but of the South's Big Four (Atlanta, DFW, Houston, Miami), Houston probably has the weakest identity. Come to think of it, cities mostly known for a pillar of the local economy, tourism and entertainment excepted, and not much else tend to have somewhat weak identities.
They are also known for the dumb culture of "lean" "purple drink" and Houston rap, along with other hip hop cultures like "slab" cars.
Location: The place where the road & the sky collide
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Originally Posted by Essequamvideri
Southbound - I would be interested to hear more about Charlotte's ties to Philadelphia's original settlers.
Mutiny - I think we agree.
Charlotte means a lot of things to a lot of different people indeed.
Most of the colonial-era Scotch-Irish & Germanic immigrants entered either the port of Philadelphia or the port of Wilmington (then part of the lower counties, later Delaware ) they travelled down The Great Philadelphia Wagon Road. Again, there was an influx to the area after the mid 1950s, for about 20 years, when the mills were closing in Philadelphia. Before WWII, many people moved to Philadelphia from this area.
Although Charlotte gives the appearance of being a new city, they would do well to figure out a way to to trade on being established in the 1700s. Maybe it would mean putting up a ton of statues. I don't know. They can't exactly run a tourism campaign & say Sherman didn't burn down our history. We tore it down ourselves.
Charlotte started out as a trading post. I helped a guy in Georgia find some information for genealogy. He found me on some genealogy billboards & he had traced one of his ancestors back to Wrightsborough in northern Georgia. He found me exchanging information about Wrightsborough. His ancestor married a Quaker girl who had gone there from NC. We found that they had married at Charlotte, where the ancestor's uncle had established an Indian trading post.
They are also known for the dumb culture of "lean" "purple drink" and Houston rap, along with other hip hop cultures like "slab" cars.
Dumb? If Houston's Urban culture is dumb I want to know what you think about LA, London and NYC.
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