Putting Charlotte to bed

I've been home for a few days now, rattling around our strange old house by myself while my perfect wife and almost-perfect (well...some of them....) children continue to drive like maniacs around much of the eastern half of North America. Though I've been busy at work, thoughts of Charlotte keep drifting back into my mind. Thing is...I hate going to a new place and not liking it. I keep wondering, pollyanna fashion, whether I've done the place an injustice. I didn't go out to Charlotte's famous trolley suburb (the trolley, though it was mostly empty as far as I could see, still runs for free as it would have done early las century when it was built). I knew that I should have, but didn't really have the time for anything other than a quick jaunt out and back. But I should have done that. I did eventually find an area in the core where people lived -- the 'historic 4th ward' in one quadrant of the small area flanked by freeways that forms the core. According to some material I read, there was some effort being made to make condominiums in the few remaining old buildings, priced at from 1.5 to 3 million dollars. A couple of the office skyscrapers were, truthfully, nicely done. The Hearst tower, a sort of noveau art deco construction, was a nice contrast to the usual rhomboid of steel and glass. Most of all, one got the sense that people in Charlotte were really proud of where they lived, wanted to hear that you were having a good time, etc. When I was asked the question, I lied. "Yes, I'm having a good time," I'd say, wondering to my self how I'd answer if anyone asked me what I was doing: "well I've spent a fair lot of time catching up on movies and drinking far too much. When I'm not doing that, I'm out walking around trying to figure out whether there's anything to do here."

Back at home, I've spent a couple of days with an installer from Santa Barbara. As I guided him from the university to the little apartment we'd rented for him, he asked "so, is there anything here?" I told him that, though we're a small town, we have two universities here so we're something of a cultural centre with plenty of theatre, a good symphony, lots of cinemas, fairly decent restaurants, etc. We're very proud of our new Uptown development with its rich mix of lofts, retail and walkability. It's tiny, but it probably couldn't be supported if it were larger. I told him all this earnestly, but then he asked "but no ocean? no mountains? What do you do?" Our hiking trails were nice, I told him, and there was a big lake one could drive to that was a bit more than an hour away. I could hear the lameness in my own voice, though.

So we compared notes a bit. I live in a small town with bland geography, decent levels of services, low crime, bearable real estate prices, good schools, and a modicum of interesting things to do. It's taken a long time for me to like it here (16 years) but now I kinda do. That said, if I had a decent chance to move to Vancouver, San Francisco, Melbourne, New York or even Halifax or Boston, I'd probably leap at it. It's ok here, but I know there are better places to be. In Santa Barbara, one can take off work early to go swimming, surfing, hiking in the Sierra Madres, but the price of a 2 bedroom shitbox backing onto a highway is about 3 times what we paid here for our 5 bedroom house in the city. The only people who live in Santa Barbara are retired luminaries from Los Angeles, faculty from the university (and these, apparently, just scrape by) and a few who were already there before prices hit the roof. So it's kind of an artificial place with spectacular geography, a very thin demographic, and, when you get right down to it, when you're not in the water or the hills, not as much to do as there is right here.

No place is perfect, but most places aren't even close to being what they could be. It's surprising how much of the time that's because of our artificial ability to move our bodies beyond walking speed.