phil-king

Two disclaimers: 1) I apologize if what I am about to say has already been touched on. 128 pages of posts is a little daunting. 2) I know Philips Place isn't South Park mall, but it's close enough... right? There's a new Brooks Brothers going in at Philips place, a big one at that. This should seem mundane and uninteresting for two reasons. First there is a Brooks Brothers less than half a mile away in the mall. Second, though Brooks Brothers provides quality merchandise at a (somewhat) reasonable price, it isn't exactly fashion forward. But, the same brand opening two stores in close proximity made me wonder. Could Brooks Brothers be carrying its higher end Black Fleece line at the Philips Place store?

To be honest JB in particular, but Borders as well, really provided limited variety in books. Most of what JB & Borders carried were things that could be found anywhere: best sellers, memoirs written by politicians, a few magazines, and the classics. B&N simply has a more robust selection of not only literature but also harder to find material like philosophy. Lamenting the loss of JB & Borders is like dreading the loss of Burger King b/c all we'll have left is McDonald's. I'm kind of glad to see these stores go, because it will create room (if we're REALLY lucky) for a niche store like one pedaling used books or graphic novels. The literary version of a local cafe, if you will. Although, I have to admit JB did have some really good coffee table books.

I have always supported building lines for high speed passenger trains connecting Raleigh and Charlotte to Richmond and the Northeast Corridor, but the Economist published an interesting article about the potential consequences new passenger lines. The article is largely concerned with the regulations and industry standards that might be imposed on freight lines as a consequence of congress developing new standards to for passenger lines. But, there are a laundry list of other economic concerns the article addresses in order to show that there are unexpected costs to building high speed intercity rail. Economist: Consequences of passenger traffic on freight lines

Interesting post Escapist. The article was very informative. I have to disagree with you on one issue though. The purpose behind building the streetcar line from midtown to uptown is not to appease the "gold plated" conservatives of the area, but rather to draw development. In fact guiding development down rail corridors and along street car roots is the more or less official goal of our mass transit system. Edit: fixed typo

I'm not disputing your numbers, they seem correct, but there is just one more bit of trickery the wsj threw at its readers. It lists "Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV" city population at 950,000. DC's population is somewhere around 600,000 I believe, meaning for some metro areas the paper was counting multiple cities from not just different counties but also different states as part of the "city population." So, I would just be wary of their statistics, whoever put this chart together for the wsj didn't make a concerted effort for clarity or consistency.

Charlotte should get a mild population boost associated with upcoming annexations. CBJ Article

There seems to be a dichotomy emerging between the perception of Charlotte, for lack of better terms, as a Sun-Belt city and a Southern city. Someone previously mentioned the New York Times article, which raved about the new cultural campus. It paints the city as a burgeoning cultural center developing a strong sense of a identity wholly its own, but consistent with the progressive attitude of places like Austin or Portland. At the same time much of our recent publicity has come from venues that are not typically labeled progressive, like the NRA convention or the NASCAR hall of fame. One of my major concerns is that Charlotte will inevitably be pigeon holed into one category or the other. Either it will be viewed as part of a new evolution in American cities or as a stronghold for the politics and pastimes of the traditional South. One may have doubts about the merits of either or both, but ultimately elements of each enrich the city in the literal and cultural senses. Moreover, one does not have to enjoy Bechtler at the expense of ignoring Nascar, just as one does not have to advocate progress at the expense of being Southern. I hope the general public and the media can come to comprehend that we are too large and too diverse to have our city partitioned into two mutually exclusive paradigms.

Sorry I should have been more explicit. I think the first link actually just shows overall city growth not msa growth. There are two reasons for this: 1) the populations shown are city populations 2) places like durham and fort worth are included alongside raleigh and dallas.

"In 2008-2009, 13 metro areas — including Chicago, Seattle, Washington DC, Denver and Charlotte — saw their core city area grow faster than the suburbs, up from 6 in 2004-2005." First of all I think that its a good sign to begin with that the WSJ found Charlotte to be formidable enough to highlight it along with much more established metropolitans. A few years ago we likely would have faded into the background along with our ubiquitous peers. On a more topical matter, I interpreted the tables to mean that Charlotte (just the city) was tenth among all of the 100 largest cities in growth. And, the metro area was sixth in terms of core city growth as well as sixth among suburban growth. The ranking of our overall metro growth wasn't shown. There is a good chance that we are tenth or higher considering that we rated very highly in both suburban and urban growth. If this this interpretation seems right then it shouldn't be hard to tabulate the overall metro rankings based off of what's given.

Many of you have referenced these statistics, directly or indirectly, at one point or another, but I thought it might be worthwhile to provide a wholesale view of April's net gains and losses. The first column is a comparison between April & March '10 and the second is between April '09 & '10. Keep in mind that at the same time last year most of these industries were shrinking by margins similar, if slightly smaller, than the gains shown here. I am not a labor economist, but I will venture to say that this paints a generally positive picture. What I really like about it though, is that it illustrates how what appear to be drops in a bucket (100 jobs here, 300 there) can sum up to be something significant. If the May numbers are similar, which they may not be given the latest unemployment stats, then by the end of the summer we could see the city finally starting to make a dent in the jobs lost during the financial crisis. These are the MSA numbers I believe. Change Over-the-Month Employment Industry Change ( 6,100) 0.8% Leisure & Hospitality 2,800 3.3% Professional & Business Services 2,100 1.7% Government 1,000 0.8% Financial Activities 700 1.0% Manufacturing 600 0.9% Other Services 300 1.0% Trade, Transp. & Utilities 100 0.1% Information -100 -0.5% Education & Health Services -1,100 -1.3% Change Over-the-Year Employment Change Industry Change (-7,000) -0.9% Government 2,400 2.0% Education & Health Services 1,500 1.9% Trade, Transp. & Utilities 1,500 0.9% Total Employment 807,700 Leisure & Hospitality 1,300 1.5% Professional & Business Services 1,300 1.0% Other Services -200 -0.6% Information -500 -2.3% Financial Activities -2,800 -3.9% Mining, Logging & Construction -300 -0.9% Manufacturing -3,400 -4.9% Mining, Logging & Construction -8,100 -18.8 Unemployment 11.1% Edit (I apologize if the font is a little odd. Forgive me it's my first post)