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This "real city/fake city" stuff is just asinine. Geesh...Charlotte has real buildings and real people just like Cleveland and every other city.
It means Charlotte has no sense of place...every one is from Somewhere else...when I lived there I met very few people who actually grew up there...and everything is just too new...very Stepford esque...no real soul to it, not real culture...too corporatized and manufactured.
Transportation: Cleveland
Crime: Charlotte
Amenities: Charlotte
Religious life (7 is an important number in religion): Charlotte
Economy: Charlotte
Leisure: Charlotte
COI: Charlotte
Atmosphere: Charlotte
Commerce: Charlotte
Shopping: Charlotte
Where you would rather live: Charlotte wins for me.
It means Charlotte has no sense of place...every one is from Somewhere else...when I lived there I met very few people who actually grew up there...and everything is just too new...very Stepford esque...no real soul to it, not real culture...too corporatized and manufactured.
The longer you live there, the more natives you run into. Surely it's a transplant-saturated city, but there are indeed natives around.
I agree with you that much of the core of the city is new, especially Uptown and South End which are really booming. But the soul and local culture of the city is to be found in the more popular intown neighborhoods like Dilworth, Elizabeth, NoDa, Plaza-Midwood, etc., as well as other outer ring neighborhoods.
Either way, Charlotte is very much a "real city." It's just a newer one.
I added my own categories, I just felt a need to organize them into stuff. Christian scene even, I think if you look for it you can find it anywhere. Anyways:
Sports: Cleveland (MLB, NBA, NFL + OSU 2 hrs away/neighboring cities)
Location: Tie (Charlotte 2 hrs. from Mt Mitchell State Park, 3 hrs. Charleston, 3.5 hrs. Atlanta. Cleveland 2 hrs. Pittsburgh, 3 hrs Niagara/Alleghenies 4 hrs. Toronto)
Parks: Cleveland (WAY more, More events, More variety)
Scenery: Even (Charlotte with Lake Norman/West Side Hills, Cleveland with forest, ravines, geology, shoreline)
Theme Parks: Charlotte (Carowinds closer, but Cedar Point better)
Weather: Charlotte (Cleveland has the longest continuous nice stretch, and snow can be a plus, but except for 2 summer months, Charlotte very moderate year round)
History: Cleveland
Museums/Culture: Cleveland
Affordability: Cleveland
Sense of Community: Cleveland
Education: Cleveland (though having option to go in state to Chapel Hill is nice)
Urbanity: Cleveland
Healthcare: Cleveland
Shopping: Cleveland (high end even, Cleveland better antique/local)
Transit: Cleveland
While Cleveland wins most of these categories, after looking at Charlotte in greater detail, I wouldn't mind being there.
Last edited by theurbanfiles; 04-13-2016 at 08:51 PM..
The safety thing is dubious, because it assumes everyone who lives in the Cleveland area lives in Cleveland, when in actuality only a little over 10 percent do. The crime rate for the metros as a whole would be a much more reliable indicator of safety, and I'm guessing many Cleveland communities are as safe or safer than those of Charlotte. Charlotte's will naturally be lower, since the city has more suburban areas absolved into it.
Charlotte and Cleveland are considerably larger than all the other I-77 corridor cities, so it's difficult for the others to measure up on urban amenity attributes. It's worth noting that the populations are rather stagnant in all the places listed outside the Carolinas. The higher growth areas of Ohio and West Virginia (and Virginia, for that matter) are in very different parts of those states.
The interstate's southern terminus of Columbia has advantages that go along with being the state capital and home to a flagship university, and is growing steadily with a pretty well rounded economy - besides education and state government, the insurance and military sectors are substantial. The population is relatively young and diverse which definitely isn't true of the corridor's West Virginia cities. Columbia also has nice recreational amenities such as the Lake Murray reservoir for water activities and a prominent zoo, and is within a couple hours of both mountains and beaches. Obviously, it has the mildest winters along this interstate, and the most sunshine as well.
Ultimately I had to vote for Charlotte given its amenities and dynamism, which is no slight to Statesville or Rock Hill, as both are outlying cities of the metro area and supplement what Charlotte has to offer.
Columbia is a pretty cool city to be sure having a state capital and flagship university of the state within the city, 2 hrs from
Greenville and Charleston as you mentioned and I think only 3 from Atlanta. Do you really think Charlotte beats Cleveland on urban amenities? I could see where someone could pick Charlotte based on preferring newer aesthetic, moderate weather, or being close to the mountains... But while Charlotte I'm sure has a good amount of stuff in certain areas, Cleveland's Metroparks system, sports arenas, cultural institutions, history, major university, built urban environment (West Side Market, Little Italy, East 4th, Coventry etc. run away from Charlotte. And that's not even a knock on Charlotte, it's just a much newer city which makes it difficult to compare. And yes Charlotte has been growing faster recently as has much of the SunBelt, but that's also difficult to measure, because the regional growing trends are newer also so there are greater opportunities for growth. Think of it as a city that's finding itself vs. one that already has. I mean I think Charlotte (by pct.) has a faster growth rate than that of the Chicago or Philadelphia metros, but still no one in their right mind would compare those two.
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