Category: Charlotte

‘I think that I shall never see … ‘

(Something more interesting for you, while the council debates wording of its Focus Area Documents – “public” safety vs. “community” safety vs. “Focus Area Two”):

Those readers interested in the sidewalk v. trees issue from Park Road (story here, editorial here) might enjoy this 1952 exchange of letters between Ray Warren, executive director, Greensboro Housing Authority, and H.L. Medford, Greensboro director of public works.

In a March 18, 1952 letter, Warren asks that a huge oak tree on Florida Street not be removed for a sidewalk. His letter uses some effusive prose, ends with Joyce Kilmer’s ode to trees: “I think that I shall never see,” etc. etc.

Medford, in a March 21, 1952, response, uses even more florid prose (“The poet, drunk with the goodness of nature, nature as moulded by the hand of God with no adulterations of mimicing man …”) and concludes with a parody of the famous Kilmer poem:

I think that I shall never see
A tree where a tree shouldn’t be;
A tree whose hungry roots are pressed
Into the sewer, choking its breast.
A tree that drops its leaves all day
and clogs all drains unless we pray,
A tree that may in summer tear
A block of street and cause grey hair
Its branches on the street are lain,
They must be removed in torrents of rain;
It heaves the walk day by day
An accident occurs: the City must pay!
Nobody loves a tree like me
but I like a tree where a tree should be.

And, Medford’s letter concludes: “In other words, Ray, I still think the tree should be removed.”

Two immediate observations:
1. I don’t think city bureaucrats today write as well, or as poetically.
2. I’m glad municipal public works officials today aren’t quite so anti-tree as to think none belong in a city!

Walking? Hazardous duty in Raleigh, Charlotte

This morning’s topic: the hazards of walking in Charlotte. One recent horror story: On Election Day my husband and I walked to our polling place, and then to the cleaner’s – which meant crossing the vast Providence Road-Sharon Amity/Sharon Lane intersection. Even after we waited for the crossing light, we couldn’t set foot into the crosswalk for fear of becoming grease spots on the asphalt, as vehicle after vehicle sped around the generously curved corner, designed to make it easy to turn at 30 mph (and making it easier to destroy anyone on foot). Knowing state law gives pedestrians in a crosswalk the right of way, and thus my heirs might at least get a nice settlement, I ventured into the crosswalk. A monstrous black SUV nearly creamed me. The blond driver, on her cellphone, never even saw me.

When we made it across, then we had to cross the other street. This time, we edged into the crosswalk so drivers could see us, and stop for us. A driver wanting to turn right (into our path) kept edging forward. I made eye contact, which usually signals to drivers to stop. So far so good.

The light changed. We stepped farther into the crosswalk. Zoom! She drove right in front of us. I am here to recount this only because we are reasonably spry. My husband shouted at her so loudly she – get this – stops her car in the left lane of Providence Road and sits there for several minutes. Hmmm. Driver safety class needed?

Which brings me to this: Although most Charlotte drivers aren’t thinking about pedestrians, we are NOT the most dangerous N.C. city for pedestrians in the state. Raleigh takes that ranking.
(Here’s a link to the Triangle Biz Journal article on the same ranking.) The study, by an advocacy group, Transportation for America, used an index based on the number of pedestrian fatalities relative to the average amount of walking by residents. The deaths came from 2007-08 data; the walking stat was based on the percentage who walk to work in 2000. I.E., it’s not a perfect measure – but it’s probably relatively close in terms of rankings if not absolute numbers.

Orlando, Fla., was the most dangerous city for pedestrians, followed by Tampa, Miami and Jacksonville, Fla. Memphis, Tenn., was No. 5. Charlotte was No. 12 on the list. All are in the Sun Belt (well, Louisville maybe is borderline), until you get to No. 14 (Detroit) and then to No. 20 (Kansas City). Here’s a direct link to the rankings. And here’s one to the study, called Dangerous By Design. That reflects the reality that most Sun Belt cities grew during the 20th century, when pedestrians were discounted completely in street and highway designs.

Pedestrian safety starts with safe sidewalks, of course. But there’s more. Traffic speed is a huge factor, and for the last half of the 20th century even in-town streets were designed for speed, not for pedestrians. Another factor is turning radius of corners. If they’re wide, pedestrians are endangered by speeding cars turning. A huge factor is enforcement. Where police take pedestrian safety seriously, drivers get the message. I don’t think Boston drivers are more courteous or innately kinder. Yet in Boston they stop for pedestrians. Police enforcement (and seeing other drivers do it) trains you. In Charlotte I’ve seen police cars almost mow down pedestrians uptown.

From ‘can-do city’ to ‘city that learns’

Mark Peres of Charlotte Viewpoint online magazine calls it “A call to redefine the city.” It’s a paper, available here, looking at whether Charlotte can change its self-image from “a can-do city that gets things done through
public-private partnerships” to “a smart city that learns.” It’s a call to invert the city’s top-down model into a bottom-up one that engages a broad base of citizens in the city’s success.

The paper is an outgrowth of an event Peres and Civic By Design’s Tom Low put together in October to explore how Charlotte might “create greater capacity in the region to address existing and future systemic issues.” Peres took the conversations that night and distilled them into some key findings (the following is his words, not mine):

• The narrative that Charlotte is “a can-do city that gets things done through public-private partnerships” is code for many for top-down-driven initiatives. The topdown nature of the city has led to great civic successes, but an unintended consequence is passivity in the general populace and distrust among many.

• The city rewards social conformity. There is a perceived divide between corporate executives and non-conformist creative citizens.

• We are consumers of received culture – not producers of original work. Our investments – theaters, museums, arenas – reinforce consumption. We have not similarly invested in assets that lead to innovation: e.g., medical and law schools, interdisciplinary education, an MFA program in fine art or design, artist incubators.

• There is not a shared vision of the region. Citizens in different neighborhoods and municipalities are not well-connected to each other – let alone to the world. There is not a regional identity or a cosmopolitan character. Racial, ethnic, and immigrant populations tends to self-segregate.

• Charlotte is often described as a young city, but it was settled in the late 1700s. It is only young in that it has just recently become nationally recognized as a banking center, and its skyline and suburbs have recently been built. It is immature in its development of economic diversification, social capital, urban design, transit, and ecological sensitivity.

The paper ends on an optimistic note, logging in some of the many community conversations and cross-boundary initiatives going on. “In a fundamental way, community creation is the work of the 21st century,” Peres concludes.

This Monday: Caldwell goes two-way


More back to the future: Several uptown streets are being converted from one-way to two-way.

This is, by and large, a good thing. One-way streets encourage driving fast, which is fine for highways but inside cities is A) More dangerous for pedestrians, B) More dangerous for drivers and C) Makes city streets feel like roads instead of city streets.

Below is a snippet from last week’s memo to City Council, saying that Caldwell Street, from Fourth Street to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard (formerly Second Street) switches to two-way traffic by noon Monday.

Brevard Street is due for similar treatment, from Stonewall to Trade streets. Update: the section of Brevard from Stonewall to MLK Boulevard will convert in May 2010, and the segment from MLK to Trade will switch in 2011 – some right-of-way issues will delay that segment, says CDOT Chief Danny Pleasant.

Here’s the memo:

Beginning Monday, August 17, traffic patterns will change on South Caldwell Street between Fourth Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. Starting at 9:00 a.m., crews will begin changing Caldwell Street from a one-way street to a two-way street. The conversion is expected to be complete by noon.
This conversion to two-way traffic is part of the Center City Transportation Plan adopted by the City Council in 2006, and has been implemented as part of the interchange and street modifications associated with the NASCAR Hall of Fame. Later phases will also convert Brevard Street between Stonewall and Trade to two-way traffic. The changes will improve traffic circulation in the area and improve accessibility and safety for pedestrians.

What does ‘professional’ theater really mean?

Here are some facts about professional, Equity and union theater, courtesy of Observer theater writer Julie York Coppens. This is to clarify some of the comments on my previous post, which make some factually murky statements. And it’s all relating to the now-shriveling efforts by Steven Beauchem to try to find community support for a regional, professional theater to replace the defunct Charlotte Rep.

There are several pro theaters in the Carolinas — all more successful than Trustus, which one commenter mentioned: The most obvious are Flat Rock Playhouse, Playmakers Rep in Chapel Hill, Blowing Rock Stage Co. and Triad Stage in Greensboro.

The union/non-union question is worth addressing, Coppens says. When people say “professional regional theater,” they mean (among other things) a company affiliated with Actor’s Equity, i.e., most of the talent and crew are union and so earn what might be called living wages.

The pro companies listed above live at various points of a sliding scale Equity has devised to allow smaller and emerging professional theaters, which have lower potential box-office income, to hire fewer union members and to pay those at a lower rate than the larger, more established houses do. Thus, all are professional/union, but only Flat Rock (as far as Coppens knows) is fully so — though even Flat Rock relies on a lesser paid army of “apprentice” laborers and chorus members who are working toward Equity status.

Charlotte’s two remaining professional theaters (Actor’s Theatre and Children’s Theatre) provide occasional work for Equity members under Guest Artist contracts, but not at a pay level or of a consistency for someone to live and work here long-term. That’s why so many of our best artists have left town. Steven Beauchem was trying to establish an Equity-affiliated company, which you really can’t do for less than a quarter-million. Presumably most of the talent, especially at first, would be jobbed in from NY or Chicago.

Charlotte’s fringe theaters (like BareBones) call themselves professional. Is it professional if the actors are making $100 for four weeks of work? But “professional” also refers to a company’s orientation, its artistic ambitions, its emphasis on product over participation. Says Coppens, “I know some amateur/community theaters that show more professionalism, in the way they work and in the product they put on stage, than a lot of fringe theaters do. The old lines are blurring.”

The Observer plans more coverage of the Rep-replacement issue in coming days.

Charlotte: Graveyard for theater?

Is Charlotte a city where the arts are healthy? You be the judge. The latest, unfortunate wrinkle in the city’s theater scene is that Steven Beauchem, a theater enthusiast who was trying to see if support exists here for professional regional theater to take up where the now-defunct Charlotte Repertory Theatre left, has called it quits.

Here’s what Beauchem wrote, in a lengthy e-mail. In a nutshell, he concluded that “Charlotte isn’t ready for locally produced, regional-level, professional theatre.” There simply isn’t enough community-wide support to make it feasible to found such an effort, he came to believe. The Catch-22, he notes, is that to demonstrate that support exists you have to put on some productions, and that to put on productions you have to have support. (And all you libertarian types, “support” doesn’t mean govt money.)

It’s wrong, he says, to blame the Arts & Science Council or the Blumenthal Performing Arts Center.

I’d love to hear what theater-lovers (and others) think about Beauchem’s efforts and his conclusions.

New Urbanism or sell-out?

The Charlotte region gets a lot of positive national attention for its examples of New Urban-style development: Vermillion, Fort Mill’s Baxter, Birkdale Village, Concord’s Afton Village and the municipal ordinances of places such as Davidson, Belmont, Huntersville, etc. But if you live here you’re more likely to hear from people who are either convinced New Urbanism is socialism in disguise and means we’ll all be rounded up somehow and forced to live in high-rise tenements, or they’re confused by developers who advertise typical suburban subdivisions as New Urbanism because they’ve thrown in sidewalks and front porches.

Reality is more complex. Today’s Next Big Thing article by Doug Smith about Vermillion is one example. Is it a sell-out of New Urban principles that developer Nate Bowman is building or planning nearly 250 single-family homes that will exceed 4,000 square feet and sell in the high $400,000s?

I suspect plenty of developers who’ve gotten rich with a formula of conventional suburban subdivisions will point and say, “Told you so. New Urbanism doesn’t sell.” And plenty of New Urban zealots will want to kick Bowman out of the New Urbanist club and will point out how environmentally unsound it is to build gigantic houses on single-family lots out in the suburbs.

Reality? The whole point of New Urbanism is to mix it up. No monocultures, of housing type or income. That means you want houses of different sizes at different price points. You also want apartments and townhouses, garage apartments, carriage houses. And you want stores, offices and as many other uses as you can get to co-exist comfortably with one another. A neighborhood of nothing but townhouses, even if they look just like Beacon Hill, is not New Urbanist.

Do I, personally, think most people need 4,000-square-foot houses? No way. I, personally, think that unless you have five or six kids, you’re wasting materials and energy and you should be ashamed of yourself for being that profligate. (Hypocrisy disclosure: If I won the lottery there is a reasonable chance I’d get a mansion-esque place. Biltmore maybe? Or maybe not. I don’t like dealing with window treatments.)

Although it happens that pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods are a lot more energy efficient, the underlying point of New Urbanism is neighborhood design, not energy-efficiency or having to meet all of my particular pet peeves – or yours, or anyone’s.

The new phase of Vermillion will also include more townhomes and three-level dwellings, and Bowman is planning to add more retail. It’s within walking distance of a planned transit stop and the core of old, downtown Huntersville. Sounds to me as if it passes the test.

And as to whether the market wants only suburban subdivisions? Get hold of today’s newspaper and notice all the ads around Smith’s piece on pages 4D and 5D. “Introducing Southborough, a new urban village,” “New condos in Davidson’s South Main Arts District,” “Condo Flats As Cool As the Neighborhood Around them.” A lot of developers seem to believe there’s a market for urbanism, too. Here’s the big Vermillion plan that ran in today’s paper, but isn’t online: