My wife and I are in Vancouver, BC for a week. I’d heard about the Vancouverism urban planning philosophy, and it’s living up to the hype so far. Vancouverism is all about:
mixed-use developments, typically with a medium-height, commercial base and narrow, high-rise residential towers
Wow that’s so cool! I’m very jealous. Vancouver is my favorite city I’ve never visited. It’s in my 3 year plan to get out there. If I could afford it, it’s my backup city for if I ever needed to just start over and do something different.
For something a bit more local, keep an eye on Kannapolis. This former company town was economically gutted in the early 2000s when one of the largest textile mills in America went bankrupt and everyone lost their jobs (I believe it was the largest layoff in NC history). In less than two decades the city has managed to turn its downtown completely around, starting with the Research Campus and more recently with the $56M baseball stadium (which doubles as a city park and is open to the public outside of games), completely revamped main street, hundreds of residential units (with hundreds more planned or already under construction), lots of retail, a brewery, and two historic theaters. The Amtrak station is also just a block away. Obviously Kannapolis benefits greatly from its proximity to Charlotte, but the moves the city has made in just the past decade have been extremely bold, and you can sense the momentum that has been building. I try to avoid getting people in my pics but there were tons of people out walking around downtown today.
I’d say it also helps that it has a train station. Sucks to have had that amount of investment/dependence in one employer but to have that Amtrak stop and as you said in close proximity to Charlotte was a lifeline. Happy they’ve turned things around!
Great pictures! This is our Tuesday night run club route, and we check out all these projects and their progress. Love to see it all. There’s also an apartment and office project going where that silver roofed house moved from, where they’ve really changed the look of that block. And 2 breweries going into former light industrial at the end of that street. And also some apartments coming just past the Bond Bros block. It’s incredible.
