Three mostly tongue-in-cheek proposals:
1. During a City Council transportation committee meeting about how many connecting streets that the city has mapped as “proposed” that were never built when subdivisions were developed (answer: because no city ordinances require them to be built) – bicycle advocate Dan Faris leans over and says, “Why can’t the city just buy a bunch of foreclosed houses, move them somewhere else, and put in the connecting streets that should be there?”
Good idea Dan. Though, A) I don’t think the city has a pool of money to do that, and B) I’m not sure some of those starter-home houses are built well enough to survive a move.
2. Lunching on barbecue driven in from Lexington, the editorial board was – again – lamenting the lack of any truly excellent N.C.-style barbecue in Charlotte. (Bill Spoon’s on South Boulevard is the best of the bunch, but it is NOT a large field.) Hmmmm. Why not, someone suggested, get the City Council to go ahead and buy that store building at Parkwood and Pegram – it had just said no, the night before, because it thought the building wasn’t big enough – and offer it at reasonable rent to a willing BBQ-meister, perhaps of the Stamey or Bridges families. It’s win-win: The city gummint gets steady rent, and the fine QC populace finally gets an amenity that’s been sadly lacking for years.
3. The question came up at Civic By Design Tuesday night: why doesn’t East Charlotte have Starbucks or Caribou Coffee or even a Kinkos? Some people think that’s a slight. Others think East Charlotte would be better off without same-old-chain development. What about a locally owned coffee house along Central Avenue’s international restaurant corridor, people said. Hmmmm. Good idea, but there’s a glitch: What kind of coffee? Vietnamese? Colombian? Brazilian? American-style joe? Here’s the idea: A willing local entrepreneur sets up an International Coffee House, serving all kinds. You’d need expert baristas for all genres, though. I don’t trust Americans to make good Latino-style coffee.