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ch-scene - Re: Ch-scene Digest, Vol 16, Issue 25

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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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