Hanrahan: anyone know this area?

[mrpeatie]

Geez- I cannot believe the 'I would never go there becuase I was told it was horrible so let me tell you what I don't know about a place I've never been' mentaility. Simply ridiculous.

Hanahan is a perfectly nice area. It is for the most part a more working class and middle class area- some people do not like that. Not all of the Charleston area can be Daniel Island levels of sanitized for habitation! It is landlocked by North Charleston so you need to view traffic and the surrounding areas on a neighborhood by neighborhood basis. The schools are actually decent. And I would be just as afraid of what lingers around the Dorchester Road area from plants as the Cooper River area. If it were all that bad the wind would carry it into Mt Pleasant, West Ashley and Daniel Island since we are not separated that greatly by geography.

Hanahan's housing is no worse than all the tract homes in Summerville, Mt Pleasant, West Ashley and most of the homes off Clements Ferry on Daniel Island.

If you do look in West Ashley- do not move to an area where youcan only enter/leave from highway 61 where it is two lanes. That area is traffic he**.

[Geechie North]

A lot of this has to do with the dichotomy of N. Charleston v Charleston that has existed since the 1890's, or perhaps earlier when the US Gov't decided to site their seagoing ops to the N. Chas/Goose Creek area.

Charleston, I'm pretty sure everyone knows, goes back to the 1600's, and was an exchange point for rice, slaves, and money. N. Charleston (my favorite quote on that area is from Pat Conroy: "To live in North Charleston is to admit defeat.") was originally called Factory Hill (despite no hill, and not a factory, but a phosphate mine) started about 250 years later. Instead of Barbadans and planters, Factory Hill attracted poor white farmers from the Sand Hills region.

Juxtaposed against the snoddiness of Charlestonians, this had to create social/class problems- and did from the get-go.

Most Charlestonians (include the traditional areas of West of The Ashley, and East of The Cooper in that mix) considered the "North Area" the home to the worst sort of rednecks- the kind of place where you caroused and made cross-eyed babies; North Charlestonians- more likely to be from "Yankeeland" or the UpCountry, considered those a little further down the peninsula to be arrogant a**holes.

Both sides had valid points.

MY family was among those with such hypocracy. Despite both my uncles on my maternal side working there, needing the Navy Yard for their economic existence, they bad-mouthed the area whenever possible. "North Charleston" (defined as any area above Mt. Pleasant St, or on the wrong side of the North Bridge- including Hanahan) was, "A place where on any given day you could see anything from the rape of a flea to a revoution.", my eldest uncle would often say.

In fine Charleston fashion, he was found to have a girlfriend in Dorchester Waylon, as well as wife in a more acceptable location, after his death.

While these attitudes have eased somewhat with that great leveler of social classes, The Mark Clark, and of course the hordes of boomtowners that have arrived since the 70's, I'd say many longterm residents still hold on to this basic prejudice in today's Charleston (pronounced with emphasis on the "R")