When Down is Up in Charlotte , NC

I recently had a buyer move to Charlotte from the tri-state area around New York City.  This is not an uncommon occurance these days.  When I moved here in the late 70's I was the Yankee who married a native Charlottean.  I do not think his grandmother ever thought of me as "family".  Now  it seems every other family is from the northeast.  So I was not surprised when my new client asked me where was "downtown".  She has been to Uptown Charlotte to the theatre and the Levine Musuems but where, she wondered, was the downtown that the locals refer to. 

In Manhatten uptown, downtown and midtown are real  geographic locations and those terms define the culture in those areas...the upscale uptown, wall street downtown and working class midtown to name a few.

In Charlotte, there is just one town...up down or otherwise.  Back in the  days when  Charlotte really did look like the small southern city Hollywood thinks the south looks like, everyone shopped downtown, went to the movies and resturants downtown.  No matter where you were going the buses all came to one  central  downtown location where you had to transfer to another bus if you planned to go anywhere else. The city was small. People walked. Families had one car.  

But then came the age of the automobile,  urban blight, urban renewal and urban decay.  The big department stores like Belk and Ivy's closed or moved out to the malls.   Suburbia grew and people began to shop at the  new suburban malls and buy  Homes near Park Road Shopping Center and Cotswold Mall.   Homes built near the upscale Southpark Mall built in 1972, and still the premier mall in the city,  probably put the final nail in the downtown shopping coffin

So in order to make people feel that the CBD was not in decay and not abandoned the city council decreed  in 1974 that henceforth "downtown" would be referred to as "uptown" because it sounded more, well...up.   And so it became.

Fact is, it is "up".  Charlotte is that shining city on a hill.  In 1997  torrential rains  flooded the  creeks that  surround Uptown and  the CBD became a island.  Briar Creek and  Sugar Creek to the east and south and Stewart Creek to the west  stopped traffic in all directions.  Uptown Charlotte was wet with rain but few commuters that day.  

Jump ahead 18 years and Charlotte truly is a new city of the New South, tripled in population from the 1960's and almost double from the 1990's.  The creeks have been revamped into greenways with walking trails and even rent-a-bike racks.  Uptown is hopping after dark and attracting  professionals young and old to the upscale restaurants, beautiful condos, theaters and arts venues. Those former suburban malls are right dead in the middle of  high demand and yet still affordable residential neighborhoods.  

So down is now  up, way up.  The economy in Charlotte  is booming and diverse, unemployment is low and everything from  luxury living to affordable housing is available here. Come on down! Ya'll gonna love it here!