Visited Greenville, SC today for the first time. Granted it was a 70 degree sunny Saturday, but holy crap I think literally everybody and their mom was out and about in downtown. Hope this doesn’t sound harsh but it seemed more vibrant than I’ve ever seen anywhere in NC (other than Friday/Saturday nights in places like Glenwood South, South End, etc). I’ll share some pics in the next day or two.
Greenville has a gorgeous riverside park in the middle of downtown called Falls Park on the Reedy, and they are currently building a large urban park about a mile away called Unity Park. It is definitely coming together and I think is easily on the same level as Cary’s downtown park will be once both are completed, except much larger. They are linked by the Swamp Rabbit Trail (greenway) which was absolutely packed today. No chance of keeping track, but I saw thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of people on the SRT over the course of a few miles.
Lots of new apartments either currently being built or recently completed, but still a very healthy stock of old buildings lining many of the main streets to help keep the historic character. I do think the overall design and material quality of the new buildings there is better than what is generally acceptable in Raleigh or Charlotte.
Definitely recommend visiting if you haven’t been. I am currently living in Charlotte and it is only about 1h45m from here, so a pretty reasonable day trip from here (I also rode around Spartanburg on my way there, and Columbia on my back). If coming from Raleigh, it would probably be more ideal to stay a night or two, but there are a good number of hotels around downtown including several that overlook the river in downtown.
Downtown Greenville is great. I think it shows the importance of a city knowing that no matter how small you are, focus on at least having one great street. Because at the end of the day, that’s all they have. So while great for a weekend, I do think that living there would get old quickly - maybe it’s just me though. Meanwhile, places like Raleigh, Charlotte etc have multiple streets / corridors you can go to each weekend.
Clubs. Clubs. Clubs. And restaurants like Del Frisco’s or some luxury restaurants. And since a lot of you guys care a little too much about equity maybe even a Waffle House. Boy do I love Waffle House.
I was just in downtown Wilmington and they have a downtown Waffle House. Needless to say I was jealous and would love one downtown. It’s crazy downtown has like 0 post club food options.
DT can easily support an urban model waffle house. I’ve been going to ATL for business and there’s one in midtown @ tech square in the same building that houses the GT hotel and convention center.
I’d LOVE to see one go into one of the empty storefronts in one of these new projects.
Yeah, this is it. As meh as I am on Charlotte, they admittedly have a better skyline.
The thing most people don’t realize, though, is that Charlotte is very sprawly outside of Uptown. The only exception to that is the Blue Line corridor, which has very little to offer anyone who isn’t an upper-middle class Millennial.
I wouldn’t even say the blue line corridor, unfortunately it’s literally just downtown (“uptown”) and the south end.
Honestly, land use is the number one reason why the blue line has been such a failure in terms of ridership. Most of the stations are park and rides with poor street connectivity and have maybe one “urban” 5 over one development in the vicinity, and maybe a few “TOD” surface parking apartment complexes that are hardly denser than something you would find out in West Raleigh.
Now maybe that’ll change in the future, but Charlotte’s failure here is a big part of the reason why it’ll be so difficult to get passenger rail funding from the state here in the triangle.
Lol Most Charlotteans post on UrbanPlanet, which strangely enough is run by someone from Concord of all places. It has subforums for all states with additional subforums for major metros. The Charlotte, Greenville SC, and Nashville sections of UP are all quite active.
Also, as someone who is originally from Raleigh, and recently moved to Charlotte, it’s pretty frustrating to constantly see people here shit on Charlotte seemingly every chance they get. I love Raleigh, but when everything is “Charlotte sucks,” “I’m glad we’re not Charlotte,” etc, it’s pretty off-putting. I don’t get that vibe as much from Charlotte users towards Raleigh.
I can understand that sentiment. While I don’t want to move to Charlotte, I subscribe to the perspective that we’re better as a state with both cities and we should be more “together” than “separate”. Charlotte has done some things right and wrong, same with Raleigh. Charlotte clearly does not suck. There are a lot of people that live there (downtown and otherwise) that would probably, pretty passionately disagree with that. I wish the forum in general would take a more positive tone with our state’s largest city. I know not all members will agree with that but most members are reasonable.
It’s so easy when there’s an obvious point of comparison to make it us-vs-them, which is too bad, agreed.
Can’t ever see myself ever cheering for the Hornets or Charlotte FC, though. Just have no connection with them. (Well, and I never watch the NBA anyway.)
The issues with the Blue Line are mostly due to the agency that runs it (Charlotte Area Transit System aka CATS) than anything else. No live tracking, poor scheduling, poor frequencies, etc. I mean 20 minute headways during rush hour??? No wonder people don’t ride it because they don’t know where the trains are in relation to the stations, and if they don’t get to their station in time then it will be at least another 20 mins before the next train rolls through. However I will grant that some of the current problems are due to changes made during Covid, as frequencies used to be much better.
I know that the state reduced funding to light rail systems following the construction of the Blue Line, but I have always been under the impression that it was more of a political move than anything based in reality.
Also, not sure what you mean about the land use. Look at South End, it’s literally lined with apartments on both sides of the Blue Line. When it opened 15 years ago, there was nothing there except abandoned warehouses. Now pretty much all current/upcoming construction there is 20+ story towers, with several 30+ towers and a 40+ story one as well. On the north side, NoDa and the surrounding neighborhoods are blowing up despite terrible connectivity due to all of the train tracks and the rail yard. It takes time for huge transportation investments to seriously affect their adjacent areas.
I think rooting for a sports team and a city are very different things. I grew up in Central Florida and a Tampa Bay Bucs fan and really dislike (from a sports perspective, same division) the Panthers. I’ll never be a Panthers fan. That said, I’d like to take a train ride over and watch a Charlotte FC game, stay the night uptown and head back the following day. I probably root for the home team in that case, but you won’t see me wearing any of their garb. I have NCFC shirts/hat. If we ever get a competing MLS team, Charlotte FC will go to the same category as the Panthers are in my world.
That said, I root for Charlotte as a city. I want them to do better, just as I want Raleigh to do better. I just don’t get why you’d want otherwise. I’m jealous of things they do better, and things they get that could have been ours. That doesn’t make me dislike “them” as a city. That’s actually kind of silly, at least my opinion.
There’s also City-Data forums where both the Triangle and Charlotte have very active forums as well. The Triangle’s sub-forum at the city level is the most active in the nation, and Charlotte’s is right up there as well.
This description, if valid, is exactly why I am critical about the lack of substantial residential density at BRT station locations out New Bern. Without substantial housing that’s walkable (1/4 mile or less) to the stations, who are going to be the riders? It seems to me that we are putting most of our substantial residential density west of our center while we put our first BRT line east of it.
Most Charlotteans post on UrbanPlanet, which strangely enough is run by someone from Concord of all places. It has subforums for all states with additional subforums for major metros. The Charlotte, Greenville SC, and Nashville sections of UP are all quite active.