Charlotte is not a world-class city?

Factual Questions
21

There are Charlestons in both W.Va. and SC, which is why Charlotte’s stuck in the middle.

As a non-native who calls it home, I can say from personal experience that the movers and shakers there are really het up about being “world class.” I’ve seen it used, without irony, in the local rag as well.

Want to know how serious they take it? There was talk at one time of bidding for the Olympics.

Charlotte’s known for NASCAR, pro wrestling (back when Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling, before Ted Turner bought it and moved it to Atlanta, then wasn’t it mutated into the WWF/WWE? Can’t keep track of it anymore), and Jim Bakker. Oh, because I-77 and I-85 meet there, it’s a big trucking city, too.

As you can guess, the muckety-mucks don’t like to mention these things. They’re soooo declasse, so they’ll mention the Carolina Panthers and Charlotte Hornets (soon to be, I guess, the New Orleans Hornets). Oh, and the trees. Lotsa trees around there.

Despite all this, I like the city that I grew up in. The bankers and politicians are entertaining in their ridiculous pretensions, the traffic patterns were designed by AA dropouts, and the university combines the worst of modern architecture with the worst in contemporary academic trends, the downtown (excuse me, “uptown”) has been dead since the '70s and the height of culture is considered to be the annual road show of “Cats.”

But what’s really funny is that this desire to be a top dog city is universal. I’ve lived in various places on the seaboard for several decades, and I’ve read in the media how each city eyes the next rung above it: Charlotte wants to be the next Atlanta; Atlanta wants to be the capital of the South, like Washington; Baltimore envies Washington; and Washington wants the culture, nightlife and attitude of New York. Can’t imagine what New York wants to be, except maybe left alone.

22

I grew up in Charlotte. A vast wasteland of strip malls and subdivisions. Charlotte harps about wanting to be “world class,” but apparently this means pro sports teams and lots of tourists, not terrific schools, libraries, and green spaces. World class? No. Pretentious? Oh, yes.

23

Having seen what “world class” has done to my hometown of Seattle (which no longer needs the “Wash.” I invariably added as a teenager), I would say: keep it well away. Enjoy being small while you have the chance.

I last lived in Seattle in 1984, and last visited in 1992. I feel no need to return. The traffic is horrific, the downtown has been thoroughly malled, the Seattle Art Museum has gone from being a terrific small museum to a mediocre medium-sized one, and much of what made Seattle different is either gone or ubiquitious. (Yes, darlings, I used to go to Starbucks when there were three.) So Charlotte’s Leading Citizens, I bid you: be careful what you wish for.

(Granted, to some extent Seattle fought becoming larger. Part of the reason traffic is so horrendous is because of a quixotic fight to keep downtown from developing height. The fear was of “Manhattanization.” Even at the time I remember thinking to myself that the choice wasn’t between some sort of platonic urban ideal and… Manhattan. It was between Manhattan and LA. Guess which one Seattle now has? And guess which one I now live in? ;))

24

New York knows it’s the center of the Universe and doesn’t need or want anything. After all, you can see Cats there any time you want.

25

No, (thank god! :wink: you can’t: Cats closed in 2000, despite the Orwellian “Now and Forever” above the Winter Garden marquee. Mamma Mia, the ABBA musical, is now playing there.

26

What’s this with the US? Why don’t they have any imagination and use the same name over and over again? So it’s a big country, but so is China, and nobody ever needed to tag the province name after a city.

:stuck_out_tongue:

27

Uh … care to give a cite for that? It’s called Washington, D.C., for two reasons. One is so that it is not confused with the State of Washington and the other is to follow the habitual pattern of Americans in the way we refer to cities as “city, state.”

Actually, my theory is that since the City of Washington, the City of Georgetown, and Washington County were merged, the City of Washington ceased to exist. There are no longer any existing boundaries that mark off the City of Washington as a definite part of the district and all government agencies use the name “District of Columbia” – you won’t see “City of Washington” in the official name of anything.

It’s not a matter of imagination. People used names because they liked them and because they wanted to commemorate some other place or idea. Also, most of these names were assigned in a relatively short period of time by people with very similar backgrounds (most of them English by the way; so there).

In any case, as far as Americans are concerned, a city name is not complete without the appended name of a larger entity. That’s another reason why we say “London, England,” and “Paris, France.” It just sounds balanced that way.

28

I hope you’ll forgive me if I take that personally.

For the record, the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg county is one of the top ten library systems of its size in the country.

29

I knew that. But I didn’t let reality spoil a good joke. Although I must admit that SNL made it before me. A long time ago, they had a skit making fun of something the mayor (Koch, I think) said about all the great cultural things you can do in NYC. But the only cultural thing they (the characters in the skit) could think of was Cats.

30

Be careful when you hear the words “world-class city,” because the only times I ever see or hear that phrase used are when someone’s trying to get taxpayers to shell out money to build a news sports arena!

Somehow, being a “world-class city” always seems to mean having a professional baseball, football or basketball team, as well as a shiny new stadium the team can play in for free.

Los Angeles doesn’t have an NFL team. Nashville does. Anybody think that makes Nashville more “world-class” than L.A.? Didn’t think so.

When you hear someone suggesting your town isn’t world class, run. Don’t walk, run. That someone is going to try to talk you out of a lot of money! Count on it.

31

Does the “popular press” follow the AP Stylebook? I don’t have my copy at hand, but the AP is pretty clear that to avoid confusion newspapers always give both the city and state for out-of-town datelines unless the city is so large or so well-known that the reader would automatically assume the city mentioned is THE city, unless it’s specifically noted otherwise. Hence, Chicago, Los Angeles, but Washington DC (not Washington the state) and New York City (not just New York.) The AP actually has a suggested list of cities that qualify.

About 10 years ago, the city fathers of San Jose (California) lobbied AP that there city was now so large and well-known that it was now considered to be the sui generis of all the other San Joses, and no longer needed “California” in the datelines.

But as far as Charlotte goes, I regret that I still have to stop and think, “oh yeah, North Carolina.”

32

While perusing www.skyscrapers.com earlier today, I took notice of one way Charlotte can be considered “world class.” Charlotte’s Bank of America Center ranks as one of the 100 tallest buildings in the world (#51). This means Charlotte’s tallest building is loftier than those in Pittsburgh, Jakarta, Sydney or Melbourne, or Frankfurt, Germany.

More fascinating for me, but off-topic, was the awareness of the underrated cities that, by this measure, are also “world class.” Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, of course, has made a great effort to distinguish itself through architecture. Dubai, UAE ranks as one of the top skyscraper cities in the world, believe it or not. And then there are all those immense Chinese cities that most Americans (like yours truly) can’t even name.

33

I should add that, by this measure, London and Paris don’t qualify as “world class,” while Cleveland and Indianapolis do.

34

Does appending NC actually help a person outside of the USA locate Charlotte? New York, California, Alaska, Florida, are recognizable, but NC? Come on, who’s kidding who here.

35

I always thought of Charlotte as a very loyal spider. FWIW, I also felt she was world-class.

36

Ummm… what does NC mean?

Would seem obvious to me that whether or not a city is “world class” would largely be determined by how well it is known in the rest of the world. On that basis, as a non-Merkin, I can assure you that the vast majority of the world has never heard of Charlotte

37

In English-language European papers that I have seen the dateline would read Charlotte, NC (or North Carolina), USA.

And now that I have my trusty AP stylebook handy, I see that there are 30 U.S. cities and 26 non-U.S. cities that can stand alone with no other identifier.

I assume the stylebook for the Canadian Press would have a larger number of Canadian cities and a smaller number of U.S. cities in their list.

38

Well, it depends on what you mean. America doesn’t have the same notion of “popular press” as Britain does. We have mainstream daily newspapers, which follow A.P. style, and we have the weekly tabloids – god knows what they do – but they’re not really considered legitimate sources of information by the reading public. They’re just for entertainment.

I’m afraid you’re mistaken here. A.P. style is “New York” for the city. If there’s some possibility of confusion, then one may refer to the state as “New York state.” “New York City” isn’t standard for any formal uses, as far as I know.

As has been pointed out, the A.P. stylebook also has a list of non-American cities that don’t require further identification. I doubt that the A.P. is trying to define “world class” here, though.

Well, it helps us here in the United States. And as for others, as I said before, we Americans have the idea that a city name is incomplete without the state, so even if “Charlotte, North Carolina,” is not necessarily more enlightening to a foreigner than just “Charlotte,” we’re likely to say “Charlotte, North Carolina,” anyway, because that is (in our minds) the proper name.

39

My apologies, Knead to Know. I didn’t mean to give offense. Charlotte does have a good library system, much better than in some places I’ve lived. But think about how it much better it could be if the city’s movers and shakers put the energy into libraries and schools that they put into professional sports teams. It seems like they focus on things that make a city well-known, rather than things that make a city a great place to live.