Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
And, actually, to be fair to Charlotte, I know A LOT of Charlotteans (spouse grew up there, family on both sides still lives there, lots of friends in the area) and I don't know anyone IRL who has this competitive streak w/ Raleigh/the Triangle. I only see it on city-data. Don't see it in real life.
From my Charlotte brosephs and brosephinas it tends to take the form of "well in Charlotte we have this and this and this" when discussing a thing. The only other situation I've heard it it is from tourists on the outer banks griping about how they don't have something there which is readily available back home in Virginia or Merlin or Ahia or wherever.
And, actually, to be fair to Charlotte, I know A LOT of Charlotteans (spouse grew up there, family on both sides still lives there, lots of friends in the area) and I don't know anyone IRL who has this competitive streak w/ Raleigh/the Triangle. I only see it on city-data. Don't see it in real life.
That's the truth! Most of these "my city is better than yours" discussions are limited to online forums like this one. You don't get this in real life.
Wow...you can't really make a comment to some people. Are you ever in a friendly discussion or are you always like this? I suppose from your curt response that it really chaps your ass for W-S to have sought-after retail that Charlotte doesn't have. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to step on your toes - I was honestly just making a relevant comment.
Wow...you can't really make a comment to some people. Are you ever in a friendly discussion or are you always like this? I suppose from your curt response that it really chaps your ass for W-S to have sought-after retail that Charlotte doesn't have. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to step on your toes - I was honestly just making a relevant comment.
I was letting you know I was already aware. Google isn't hard to use and I was just there Saturday, dude. Had to get my Beyonce bag.
Yeah, having fancy office buildings mean nothing if downtown still rolls up the sidewalks at 5pm. To their credit both Raleigh and Durham have made huge strides in fixing up their respective downtown areas and in Raleigh's case encouraging more residential density.
A person who's actually lived in real cities would see it as pointless too and say y'all suffer from a distinct case of being too big for your britches.
Shoot, more Charlotteans go to State, Dook, and Carolina. And then go back home every weekend because the center of their universe doesn't extend beyond their McNeighborhood.
This is the heart of the matter right here. From an impartial observer's viewpoint, knowing a fair sampling of people from both places- only one group has this need to seek validation by comparing itself to other places as if being a city is some sort of contest.
I was letting you know I was already aware. Google isn't hard to use and I was just there Saturday, dude. Had to get my Beyonce bag.
Don't flatter yourself.
LOL...what an inane post. Like I said, there is no discussing anything with some people. You seem intent on arguing with almost everyone from what I've seen. But carry on.
Last edited by JoeTarheel; 04-30-2013 at 04:36 PM..
When a 1 million-plus sq/ft building is placed on a 3 acre or less site, several trees (that would have been cut down in the name of suburban styled developments) were saved. Also, dense urban office markets are easier to serve by mass transit (which saves on the infrastructure expense of building more roads). Placing sports arenas in or near a dense office market helps justify mass transit and less road building also. Tall buildings are nice to look at, but they also help with urban design and smart-growth-land-use practices.
If uptown Charlotte kept all of its buildings under 5 floors tall (over 20 million sq/ft of office space), uptown would sprawl several thousand acres. The area would not be compact or walkable like it is today. However, due to the massive heights of many towers, we have an office district with 75,000 workers, 15,000 residents, 20,000 students, and several thousand daily visitors all confined to a 1.8 sq/mile area of the city.
Though Charlotte itself sprawls to nearly 300 sq/miles, much of the activity takes place in the small 1.8 sq/mile center of town. Charlotte could've pulled off its current city tier without building a single skyscraper, but if the city had done that; there would be very little available land uptown for future growth and developments.
My point is that there's logic behind measuring a city's success by looking at the building density and building heights of its downtown. A small-town person probably would see this stuff as "funny" or "pointless". Then again, people in large cities laugh at the small-towners when they brag about getting a new Target or Super Walmart. To the larger city folks, tall buildings and a new mass transit line are our "new malls", "new stop lights", and the "new truck stop". For the record, there are folks in Raleigh who would turn flips down Fayetteville Street if an amusement park, light rail, an Ikea, and a 30 story tower were announced for Raleigh this week. I'm just being honest...
I think you're making a bit too much out of the "tall building" thing. The most vibrant urban neighborhoods are typically characterized by their relative lack of height. Furthermore, Charlotte has no geographic boundaries that limit Uptown's footprint; it's only constrained by the artificial boundary of I-277. Had Charlotte kept most of those lowrise buildings in Uptown--which didn't even cover the entire area of Uptown as it now defined, meaning there would still be room for highrises--it would have a much more extensive urban fabric that would have spread the pedestrian activity out over a wider area. Hence, this is why downtown Charleston, Savannah, etc. are functionally more urban and pedestrian-oriented than uptown Charlotte.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
