Charlotte Off Topic

[Matthew.Brendan]

City of Charlotte when faced with the easiest opportunities

 

[15895]

Didn’t want to derail the Good News thread. UP is still by far my favorite source for Charlotte related news despite how I just think sometimes people are just so crazy wrong & such a overly negative narratives on their perceptions of cities that in theory, if anything, are doing things we’d like in Charlotte. But I don’t think it’s meant to be intentionally malicious. If you only pay attention to Charlotte, maybe people just don’t know?

I found it interesting in list shared on here for Absorption Rate & Homeless, Chicago ranked better than Charlotte. 

Chicago was 4th in the nation in absorption besting places like Atlanta, Charlotte, Austin, Washington, Nashville. 

For homelessness, Chicago also has the 3rd least amount of homelessness of major US metros. 
 

 

I found this interesting after several “Chicago is spiraling” and seemingly an inferiority complex etc. Especially since Chicago seems to be besting Charlotte in the things we all deem good news for Charlotte… And Metro Chicago has the 2nd most Fortune 500’s - another important metric on this website. Even more ironic is using metrics to slam Chicago that Chicago is performing better in lol. 

This isn’t to boost Chicago, at all. I have no vested interest other than as an American, I feel like it’s one of our great cities and I have pride in it as an American. 

But more so. It’s just ironic to see such very, very wrong & pretty aggressive views on Chicago (and other certain cities) and then posting statistics that unironically had Chicago ahead… in Fortune 500’s, Apartment Absorption & homelessness. 
 

Does that not strike anyone else’s curiosity? But Boston, Philadelphia, New York, Seattle, Washington and several other have such impressive urban growth. But some of y’all parrot these “Chicago is dying, NY is dying” & me as a person who somewhat knows what’s going on in several cities. It’s hard to read that knowing What’s all going on in Seattle, DC, Chicago, NY, etc. From mass transit, to urban development, to bike lanes etc. then to read this extreme hyperbole, some outright lies. It’s just a little difficult not to comment on stuff so detached from reality sometimes. 

So since Chicago is the most recent punching bag… 

Since 2019, the below has been built in Chicago over 800 Ft. Tall and exceeding 1,000 Ft.

 

Not including Proposed but actual Approved by the city and construction date planned (up to 1,400 ft)

 

 

It’s like. Maybe some people need to reevaluate… what actually matters… or reconsider the sources… stop parroting far right talking points. Because they’ll hate you just as much too… 

We had 10 miles of Heavy Rail in DC built, 20 miles of Light Rail being built. Tons of urban development. New York has a crazy looking skyline vs. 10 years ago and it looks like the future. Even Brooklyn is getting 1,000 footers. Seattle is. My god… Seattle is explosive. Boston is crazy. Philadelphia is crazy & likely getting a new Subway line. I mean. Meanwhile, I look at the “explosive” growth, low cost, best for business cities. Yet all that growth. &They can’t build any mass transit. And what they do build is super watered down, super cutting corners… The amount of urban development there are versus the population growth aren’t impressive in comparison & really pretty bad. The projects are pretty low quality. Lots are giant podiums, etc. vs. what’s being built in Seattle, Chicago, etc. Charlotte can’t even build bike lanes or do sidewalks due to cost and we get dozens of miles a year and sidewalk extensions all the time. Seriously… how can a city not have money to put in sidewalks where there should definitely be some? So it’s hard to say “oh, boy, I wish we were growing as fast as them. I would love to be higher growth instead of a dying city everyone is fleeing.” But… we get the mass transit, super tall skyscrapers, higher quality developments and more urban development in general. 
 

Im not trying to say one area isn’t as good as another. But I say that in response to the near obsession against the cities building the most urban developments, mass transit, etc. The daily “they’re dying.” Because some of y’all are being bamboozled. You will NOT get even the budgeted rag tag silver line alignment while we build a lot more a rail like that spares no cost. Some people must be being lied to by their GOP legislators. Because despite all the statistics on papers. Why are “we” (the dying cities people are fleeing) getting all the urban development & mass transit? 
 

And fyi I am not against our booming sunbelt cities. I just wish you know. If you want the Silver Line… if you want more bike lanes. You shouldn’t team up with the false talking points from the people purposely preventing you from getting it. The purpose of these narratives is literally to prevent you from getting more tax revenue, to divert your tax revenue to rural areas, to prevent you from getting mass transit you deserve, by diverting your tax dollars to prevent you from having funds to bury your power lines. That’s the only purpose of the “dying, fleeing” narrative - to take away from red state cities their tax dollars & to find every tiny way to take away as much power from you as possible…

Edited July 13, 2023 by AirNostrumMAD

[CLT2014]

Woops wrong thread! Delete

Edited July 14, 2023 by CLT2014

[videtur quam contuor]

I checked Polaris today for a property mentioned on Axios and the property lines and survey description appear to include a significant amount of the deed to include underwater property. The Polaris property lines show to the center of the cove, more or less. There is also a red dotted line onshore of all the properties and a blue line just off shore of said properties in the cove. 20927 Bethelwood is the address. Can someone confirm that ownership of underwater land is included in deed. Also the meaning of the blue and red lines on Polaris.

Edit: I see from a partial survey for the previous owner listed on Polaris that there is an easement for "Duke Power flood and flowage". I guess this is the water above the land mentioned. This survey for previous transaction is identified as for informational purpose only to identify "Sight view encroachment". Explanation, please?

Edited July 22, 2023 by videtur quam contuor

[kermit]

On 7/22/2023 at 9:54 AM, videtur quam contuor said:

I checked Polaris today for a property mentioned on Axios and the property lines and survey description appear to include a significant amount of the deed to include underwater property. The Polaris property lines show to the center of the cove, more or less. There is also a red dotted line onshore of all the properties and a blue line just off shore of said properties in the cove. 20927 Bethelwood is the address. Can someone confirm that ownership of underwater land is included in deed. Also the meaning of the blue and red lines on Polaris.

Edit: I see from a partial survey for the previous owner listed on Polaris that there is an easement for "Duke Power flood and flowage". I guess this is the water above the land mentioned. This survey for previous transaction is identified as for informational purpose only to identify "Sight view encroachment". Explanation, please?

Not a lawyer but will nonetheless respond with the very helpful statement of "its complicated". The ownership of under(fresh)water land is generally governed by the navigability of the waterway (more specifically the navigability of the waterway when the state was founded I believe). In general, the land under a navigable body of water belongs to the state, if its non-navigable then the (underwater) land can be privately owned. As you have already surmised, the definition of navigability is a bit vague, but it generally refers to very small watercraft and there is no expectation of connectivity to other waterways. Determining how many canoes were paddling around in the 1600s is much more of an art than a science.  I interpret all of this to mean that most of the land under a man-made lake (like Norman, or Wiley) belongs to private land owners since the impoundment did not exist at the time the state's boundaries were established. I suspect one exception might be for the original river bed, if it was thought to be navigable before impoundment. 

All of these issues were hashed out in the courts in great detail for the Alcoa dam relicensing on the Yadkin / Pee Dee in 2008. Here is a summary of that legal process: https://www.carolinajournal.com/alcoa-prevails-in-state-lawsuit/   [beware the Carolina Journal is an Art Pope rag and is VERY right wing, but I found this to be a reasonable (even if somewhat slanted) summary of the legal process]  

Not at all relevant to land in Mecklenburg, but I do have firsthand experience with this underwater land ownership fact: In the case of tidal salt water, private land owners can only hold title to the land down to the Mean High Water (MHW) mark and all ocean front property in NC has its forward boundary noted as MHW. While the MHW is conceptually a simple concept, its location is difficult to identify in a legal sense since the line is dynamic. The MHW line can only be determined from multiple years (decades?) of surveying and it is legally impossible for an individual (lets 'hypothetically' say an officer of the law attempting to write a ticket for public consumption or having your dog on the beach) to identify the location of the  MHW line from observation. This, in effect, means that no one can really identify the location of the line that separates the front yard of a waterfront property owner / renter and the public beach (which is technically the area below MHW). [again, NOT a lawyer]

Edited July 26, 2023 by kermit

[15895]

If anyone was curious how Charlotte’s streetcar ridership fairs. (Not sure the below is all cities. I’d expect San Francisco, Boston & Philly to be very high unless theirs are counted as light rail) 
 

 

 

[CLT2014]

Are the streetcar lines working in most of the US?

17 streetcar lines in the graph across the US that total up to only 37,800 daily riders across all those cities. Most are barely moving more than the amount of high schoolers transported via bus to just one single high school.... 

Edited July 31, 2023 by CLT2014

[tozmervo]

I'd like to see the passengers per mile version of that chart.

[kermit]

On 7/31/2023 at 8:54 AM, tozmervo said:

I'd like to see the passengers per mile version of that chart.

• Uses the ridership data from the chart above
• Length measured as end-to end distance on Google Maps (only one leg of one way loops were measured since the loop distance does not extend the reach of the line)
• I cut off the super-low ridership streetcars (sub 1,000 per day) because I got lazy
• Kansas City! [shows that mixed traffic streetcars for urban circulation only can work well -- it carries almost twice as many riders per mile as the Blue Line]
• Tampa is really just a Ybor City bar shuttle (but its been a long while since I have seen it in person so perhaps it has matured?)
• Tucson connects a large university (44,000 students) with downtown
• Seattle’s two lines are supposed to be connected but the city… https://www.theurbanist.org/2023/08/03/center-city-connector-streetcar-again-in-jeopardy-as-council-set-to-pull-study-funding/
• When opened Cincinnati got a ton of criticism for ‘nobody is gonna ride it’ but it appears to have done well
• From my Detroit visit last month I would credit the M-Line with a significant amount of urban revitalization along Woodward ave.
• Gold Line doing pretty badly, particularly when considering it is one of the few Streetcar lines that connects to ‘real’ rail transit (Seattle, DC (sorta), Portland, Tempe and Dallas are the others that connect)
• The high ridership streetcars appear to operate at 10-15 minute frequencies (and sometimes higher for events)
• I would put most of the blame for Charlotte's poor performance on the 20 minutes (at best) frequency along with VERY unreliable schedules (due to staffing issues)
• Per the wiki numbers (ridership is from Q4 2020... seems weird) the Blue Line does 1,435 passengers per mile (would rank at 4 on this list)

Edited August 4, 2023 by kermit

[KJHburg]

^^^ S. L. U. T.   is the name of the Seattle transit?  Is that South Lake Union Transit or something else? 

anyway I know people talk about film production in NC well NC's 2nd studio is underway in Wilmington.

Triangle Inno - Hollywood strike hasn't derailed new studio plans in Wilmington (bizjournals.com)

Edited August 2, 2023 by KJHburg

[kermit]

17 hours ago, KJHburg said:

^^^ peppermint is the name of the Seattle transit?  Is that South Lake Union Transit or something else?

Yea, South Lake Union Transit or Trolley was the popular acronym for a while. Needless to say the city went to some effort to label it South Lake Union Streetcar instead.

To quote the former mayor: "I don't care what you call it, as long as you ride it."

Edited August 3, 2023 by kermit

[KJHburg]

fyi when I mentioned the S. L. U. T.  it changed the word the peppermint on UP so I guess it a moderator AI tool. 

[RANYC]

How many regularly ride the S L U T?

[davidclt]

18 hours ago, kermit said:

Yea, South Lake Union Transit or Trolley was the popular acronym for a while. Needless to say the city went to some effort to label it South Lake Union Streetcar.

To quote the former mayor: "I don't care what you call it, as long as you ride it."

Funny S.L.U.T. anecdote . . . One of my last votes in Seattle was for transit in 1999 (IIRC - may have been '98) before moving and re-registering here in 2000. I was quite amused at the moniker the South Lake Union Trolley received once it was built.  In 2008, my daughter was in kindergarten and we were at our annual parent-teacher conference and the teacher mentioned that her (recent college grad) daughter was living in Seattle and working for Metro (Seattle Transit). Without missing a beat (and much to the chagrin of my (now ex-)wife) I brightly told her to ask her daughter about "riding the S.L.U.T." That earned me a pinch and then I explained. I always took my kids' education seriously but I tended to not be overly serious with any of their teachers . . . When they were in high school, the science teachers would send home updates including asking if I had any concerns. . . I would usually respond with "The heat death of the universe but with my kid not the science education they're receiving, none."

Edited August 3, 2023 by davidclt
fixed for clarity and typo

[gman430]

And still no Taylor Swift for Charlotte. Yeesh.

[Crucial_Infra]

I’m not a robot.  (in case anyone wants to adjust the aggressive captcha for this site)

[15895]

So BofA Corp. in Charlotte slides down my list in prettiest skyscrapers. 

that new tower in Brooklyn is one of my favorites in the world. (Credit: Cities Explore on Facebook)

[abttown]

^The Brooklyn Tower reminds me of something you'd see from Lord of the Rings. It's quite dark and ominous, but it certainly commands some respect. Apparently, the Dime Savings Bank from the early 1900's is preserved at the tower's base.

[Matthew.Brendan]

Hard to beat Bronze and Marble

 

https://thebrooklyntower.com/design

[DMann]

Cleveland Trust had a grand bank in downtown Cleveland that is now a grocery store.

[tozmervo]

Watching the 1976 academy award winning documentary "Harlan County, USA" that covers the 1973 coal miners strike against Duke Power. Some of the picket line footage caught my eye. 

[15895]

nvm 

 

Edited August 16, 2023 by AirNostrumMAD

[DMann]

Is this a DeSantis campaign photo?????

[15895]

Photo & Stats from @TheATX1 on X:

in the photo below, you can see all of the following towers are U/C:

Waterline - 1,022', 73-stories
Modern Austin - 658', 56-stories
Travis - 594', 52-stories
Paseo - 567', 48-stories 
700 River - 500', 42-stories
Vesper - 452', 41-stories
Fairfield Inn - 17-stories
Cambria Hotel - 14-stories

The below shows several of the towers rendered in

 

Austin with its tallest U/C, which will again be surpassed which is a seemingly every year occurrence for like a decade. 

 

I keep expecting Austin to fizzle slow down but I wonder how far it goes. I’m very curious for a skyline that back in 2005 looked like Greensboro & puny compared to Winston-Salem could have a better skyline & more urban & compact than Houston or Dallas. If only they’d have opted for a subway instead of surface running LRT in downtown…

To me the craziest part is how residential it is & if they’ll get an office tower boom? I could imagine a prominent 1000+ office tower being built there. That’d really pull it together. 

Edited August 20, 2023 by AirNostrumMAD

[Durhamite]

2 hours ago, AirNostrumMAD said:

Photo & Stats from @TheATX1 on X:

in the photo below, you can see all of the following towers are U/C:

Waterline - 1,022', 73-stories
Modern Austin - 658', 56-stories
Travis - 594', 52-stories
Paseo - 567', 48-stories 
700 River - 500', 42-stories
Vesper - 452', 41-stories
Fairfield Inn - 17-stories
Cambria Hotel - 14-stories

The below shows several of the towers rendered in

 

Austin with its tallest U/C, which will again be surpassed which is a seemingly every year occurrence for like a decade. 

 

I keep expecting Austin to fizzle slow down but I wonder how far it goes. I’m very curious for a skyline that back in 2005 looked like Greensboro & punt compared to Winston-Salem could have a better skyline & more urban & compact than Houston or Dallas. If only they’d have opted for a subway instead of surface running LRT in downtown…

To me the craziest part is how residential it is & if they’ll get an office tower boom? I could imagine a prominent 1000+ office tower being built there. That’d really pull it together. 

It’s still a weird looking skyline, guess it goes with the city theme.  No where near as impressive as Houston or Dallas.