ch-scene AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: RTP-area local music and culture
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- From: grady <grady AT ibiblio.org>
- To: RTP-area local music and culture <ch-scene AT lists.ibiblio.org>
- Subject: Re: Ch-scene Digest, Vol 16, Issue 25
- Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2005 15:28:53 -0500
Kind of like Briar Chapel in Northeastern Chatham? Or Meadowmont/Southern Village?
This is a phenomenon that I've been idly curious about for a while now. How many of these "it'll be like its own little town!" developments actually ever live up to that promise? Sure, if large enough they wind up with their own schools, but a school is only the beginning.
What makes a town? Is it some commercial/industrial base to employ the majority of the townspeople? (and if that commercial/industrial base dies out & everybody starts driving elsewhere for work, is the town still a town? Is Carrboro a town?)
Is it self-government, and the ability to levy local taxes?
The proximity to RTP makes Parkwood a particularly interesting case, because if anyplace in the Triangle should by rights have magically become its own self-contained city, RTP is it. It has the industry, it has the space for housing (though there was a long gap, near as I can tell, between the development of Parkwood and the relatively recent upsurge of condos/apartments in the South Alston/55 & Miami Blvd areas -- though there are threads of South Durham running all around RTP). It even has its own post office, though I've heard the workers there scolding people about putting "RTP" on their addresses, as the PO's address is actually Durham.
It seems to me that it's kind of like religions. It's *really* hard to start a new religion from scratch & have anybody take it at all seriously. Seems like even if there's a lot of empty space and plenty of room for a new town, people aren't going to take you seriously as a town until you've got 50-100 years under your belt.
Ross
Mary Anne Barckhoff wrote:
Howdy neighbor! I live in Parkwood too. Actually,
Parkwood is an early 60's-era development that was in
the middle of nothing, but close to burgeoning RTP. It was built with a shopping center (what is now the
library used to be a grocery), churches and a school,
so it was intended to be a self-contained community. My realtor also told me that it almost became its own
town back in the day. So, even though it is now
"suburbia," at the time it was built, it was intended
to be self sufficient.
But it's no Chapel Hill/Carrboro for sure.
mab
--- grady <grady AT ibiblio.org> wrote:
Well, you know, those of us who live by the car are
destined to die by the car, and I say this as someone who just spent 40
minutes in the car commuting to RTP.
Isn't Parkwood a fairly typical 70s-era white-flight
suburb of Durham/RTP, pine trees or no pine trees? That
refreshing lack of gas stations & Teeters just meant that the residents had
to drive further to meet their basic daily needs -- unless y'all were
growing all your own food when you were kids (I can just picture Peder
walking behind a plow) . . .
I dig what you're saying about eccentric local funk
-- but really, how long do you have to live elsewhere to develop
nostalgia for the oil-tank farm and the junkyard that bookend the current
Cradle?
Basically, as long as people keep procreating and/or
immigrating, we're going to have to deal with development. We only get
two choices: out, or up. Up is vastly preferable to out, especially since
the surface of the earth is a finite quantity while, strictly speaking,
"up" is infinite. The engineering just gets trickier the further up
you go ;-)
Ross
dAvid Hollinghurst wrote:
First, I offer my apologies to anyone who I
offended with my own
"knee-jerk" reaction toward the new plans for
Downtown Carrboro.
Since I have come into the discussion a bit late
in the game (and the
distance doesn't help), it could seem immature,
rash, and a bit
uncalled for. My intention was to spout off a
little, then give
credit to all who have given positive, rational,
and reasonable
suggestions and discussions for this new
development, support to
those that have given constructive criticism. To
some, the first
paragraph just poisoned and erased the rest.
Perhaps I should have
made myself clearer.
Allow me to explain my vitriol. My family moved
to a housing
community in southern Durham county called
Parkwood in 1984. It's a
pretty insular situation, being there are
greenways and forests of
pine that generally disallow any kind of
development in yr own
backyard. No chance for a gas station, or a
Harris Teeter, or a
Wal-Mart looming over you at night. But outside,
we watched the pine
forests fall. Strip mall here, townhouses there.
Fayetteville Road
and Hwy 54 were doomed once we saw the potential.
Pretty soon, the
houses that held a family for thirty years or more
were bathed in
traffic, noise, and some serious light pollution.
They basically had
no choice, except to eventually move. Yr typical
sprawl situation.
And then one day, I was driving down what was once
a back road made
of gravel, through the construction of more
cardboard housing
developments. Around the corner and BAM!, an
entire area of dense
pines completely razed. Bulldozers galore. The
signs of a new
development: Southpoint, the mall that would best
Crabtree was
threatening it's presence. They will come, cried
the machines, and
in droves.
My first thought: what about the people that live
on this road, just
on the end of this new commercial excess? Has
anyone driven past
Southpoint, to where the four/six lanes turn into
two? It's like an
insult to these poor, unfortunate souls who have
been living there
for so long, their children, and grandchildren
that have visited
them, memories that were planted with the grass in
the front yard,
the swingset in back. Now, they live on the very
outskirts of the
disease that is about to engulf their homesteads:
Development. What
chance do they have? Sure they had a voice, but
the town and the
businesses seemed to care little. There is no
buffer there. In a
few years, you may see some "For Sale" signs in
those yards. May see
them, I say, because they probably have already
been offered a lump
sum for their homes, their land, their memories.
And eventually,
they'll fold, just like everyone else has, and
probably for a steal,
because the brokers are all going for the same
deal, the same profit.
No one can blame them; who the hell would want to
live in these
conditions?
My vitriol is based on the background of this
sprawl, this disease
that spreads like wildfire across our country.
Yes, I'll agree with
you before you begin to argue. This plan is not
really pushing
people out of their homes. And Main Street
Properties has done a
good job in allowing the community to become
involved in the process
for this project. The fact that they are
designing spaces
specifically for their clients that have become a
mainstay in the
cultural and economical process of Carrboro
exhibits their
consideration and understanding of what this move,
this change, this
development will mean to the community.
But for me, from what I have witnessed, it's the
disease. And with
that, the change of the livelihood. It can happen
for the better,
but every time I hear the word development, I
cringe. There are
obviously far more issues than just the loss of
memories and
sacredness of peoples homes, and the rights to
live as they please.
Ross pointed out several strong issues in his
posting. These are
questions we want answers for.
Character for a town to me doesn't necessarily
mean the architecture
or the amount of people to me. It's the odd
houses, the random
shops, the old tree on a corner or the funky
sculpture some hippy put
in their front yard. The people, the attitude,
and variety that
allows everyone to contribute to the greater
creativity. A
development like this, as good natured as it is,
tends to flatten and
sterilize the character. And where there is one,
there is more.
These points I am sure are nothing new; we've seen
it everywhere.
Everyone here seems to understand the big picture
and what our
culture has the potential to do to itself and to
others.
I do realize the juxtaposition of what a somewhat
poseur-satellite-localite has in a newsgroup such
as this. But the
thing is, I do care. Living in NYC has given me
more appreciation
for what towns like Chapel Hill and Carrboro have
to offer. Not just
the quiet and moderately cheaper rent, but the
sense of community
that naturally exists. NYC is just so darn big,
you don't really get
that here, which is why I signed onto this
newsgroup, which is why I
am also part of the "gonna move back to
CH/Carrboro when the time
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-
RE: Ch-scene Digest, Vol 16, Issue 25,
Allen, Richard, 02/25/2005
-
Re: Ch-scene Digest, Vol 16, Issue 25,
grady, 02/25/2005
- Re: Ch-scene Digest, Vol 16, Issue 25, Bo Williams, 02/25/2005
- <Possible follow-up(s)>
-
RE: Ch-scene Digest, Vol 16, Issue 25,
dAvid Hollinghurst, 02/28/2005
-
Re: Ch-scene Digest, Vol 16, Issue 25,
grady, 02/28/2005
-
Re: Ch-scene Digest, Vol 16, Issue 25,
Mary Anne Barckhoff, 02/28/2005
-
Re: Ch-scene Digest, Vol 16, Issue 25,
grady, 02/28/2005
- Re: Ch-scene Digest, Vol 16, Issue 25, Nathaniel Florin, 02/28/2005
- Re: Ch-scene Digest, Vol 16, Issue 25, ron thigpen, 02/28/2005
-
Re: Ch-scene Digest, Vol 16, Issue 25,
Chris Calloway, 02/28/2005
-
Re: Ch-scene Digest, Vol 16, Issue 25,
grady, 02/28/2005
- Re: Ch-scene Digest, Vol 16, Issue 25, ron thigpen, 02/28/2005
- Re: Ch-scene Digest, Vol 16, Issue 25, rick sawyer, 02/28/2005
- Re: Ch-scene Digest, Vol 16, Issue 25, bendy, 02/28/2005
- Re: Ch-scene Digest, Vol 16, Issue 25, grady, 02/28/2005
- Re: Ch-scene Digest, Vol 16, Issue 25, bendy, 02/28/2005
-
Re: Ch-scene Digest, Vol 16, Issue 25,
grady, 02/28/2005
-
Re: Ch-scene Digest, Vol 16, Issue 25,
grady, 02/28/2005
-
Re: Ch-scene Digest, Vol 16, Issue 25,
Mary Anne Barckhoff, 02/28/2005
-
Re: Ch-scene Digest, Vol 16, Issue 25,
grady, 02/28/2005
-
Re: Ch-scene Digest, Vol 16, Issue 25,
grady, 02/25/2005
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