How (not) to be a creative city

I was recently walking down the sidewalk beside the Lynx light rail, and I spotted some colorful banners alongside the tracks. They added a festive touch, I thought. Then I read them.

They said: "Create" and "Splurge" and "Thrive" and my favorite, "Groove." I found this interesting. It had the flowery fragrance of promotional marketing. I checked. Yep, the banners are part of a rebranding effort for South End.

Now I am not against promotional marketing. In an advertising-based industry, how could I be?

But somehow, being ordered to "Thrive" reminded me of a time, years ago, when the walls of the Observer building sprouted posters ordering us all to "Work Smarter." As if we would all slap our heads in recognition of our heretofore obvious stupidity and decide to mend our ways.

The promotional effort, courtesy of Charlotte Center City Partners, the nonprofit uptown advocacy group that also serves South End, partnered with a South End design/branding firm. They want to highlight "the brand attributes of the district" which they believe to be shopping (hence, "splurge"), residential ("thrive"), art galleries and creative businesses ("create"), and hospitality and nightlife ("groove").

I called three creative types from around town, plus my college-aged daughter and asked if anyone ever says "groove" any more. "I don't think so," said commercial film producer Peggie Porter. "I hear people say 'groovy' in a sort of ironic way."

"No one I know says groove," said the text my daughter sent from Chapel Hill.

Filmmaker Dorne Pentes, though, said he still sometimes hears people say "groove."

What about the rest of the banners and being ordered to "create"?

"I think that would be the least likely thing to make me feel creative," Porter said. "It sounds like Chamber of Commerce stuff to me," Pentes said.

As one branding/marketing expert told me (no name because this person needs business and can't afford to tick people off), "In the brand world, what things ARE is most important, not what you say they are. That's what we focus on with clients. Get them away from slogans."

Colorful banners? Nice touch. Sloganeering in a supposedly "artsy" part of the city? Not so creative.

A note about spacing: For some reason blogger.com today refuses to put spaces between the paragraphs. I tried deleting the old spaces, putting in new "enter" lines, the works. No luck. Does anyone have any solutions for this?

The candy bar approach to city planning

Thank you, anonymous commenter from 5:20 p.m. Tuesday. I am not against density or height. I am against height in the wrong place. You can make a case that next door to the Arlington is an appropriate spot for density, and I won't get in your face about it, although I think the proximity to the Dilworth Historic District makes it problematic, for reasons I've mentioned before. Overall, I tend to agree with Charleston Mayor Joe Riley, who says that six five-story buildings are better than one 30-story building.

But here's the crux of my objections to the South End rezoning: The whole point of a small station area plan is to plan what heights and densities are appropriate on which spots. If the planners who wrote the South End Station Area Plan and the City Council who adopted it in 2005 believed that site was appropriate for buildings twice the height of the rest of the area's height limit, why not have the plan say that? Why limit the appropriate height there, in the plan, to 120 feet? Those kinds of issues are precisely why your tax money pays for planners and why your elected representatives adopt small area plans.

Why even bother with any plan if it's routinely disregarded?

It reminds me of taking a kid to the grocery store. You say before you go, "I'm not buying you candy in the check-out line." If you then buy the kid a Snickers in the check-out line, that kid will cry for candy on every visit to the store for the next 20 years. And you will have undermined any credibility your authority might have had.

One last thing, responding to a commenter on the post about the Piedmont Town Center project: I LOVE Filene's Basement. Offer one of those up and I'll be out there with my chainsaw. (Joke, people, joke.)

South End tower wins swift OK

Reporting live, from City Council:
(See previous post, also from council meeting, about a first -- a developer urging council to reject his own rezoning petition.)

The City Council launched the vote-on-rezonings part of its meeting at roughly 6:25 p.m. By 6:39 p.m. it had finished its rezoning decisions. They ripped through 18 rezonings, all except one of them approved unanimously with no discussion on any, except for about 30 seconds on the one that was approved 7-2 (for a day care center at The Plaza and Barrington Drive).

That proposal to allow a 250-foot high-rise tower in South End? The one that was in violation of the South End Transit Station Area Plan, which set a 120-foot height maximum? I didn't have a stopwatch, so I couldn't tell you whether it was 5 seconds or 10, but there was no discussion, nothing. Unanimous approval, and on to the next agenda item.

Sure, the council's rezoning meetings can drag. The public hearing part of the meeting tends to bring out developers and neighborhood opponents. It's 7:34 p.m. and they're just on No. 6 in a 15-item public hearing agenda. And council member Michael Barnes just pointed out that there have been numerous violations of the Northeast District Plan in recent years. So why didn't he -- or anyone else -- think it was worth maybe a little public discussion about why they were violating the South End station area plan, adopted in 2005?

Maybe there were good reasons. Maybe the 120-foot maximum height limit adopted as part of the Transit Station Area Principles isn't a good idea after all. You, the voting public, have no way to know why the council members decided to treat their own adopted plans as virtually irrelevant.

They're on auto-pilot. The biggest issue facing the city for decades has been growth and how to deal with it and pay for its impacts. You'd like to think your elected officials are thoughtfully debating the pros and cons of different growth proposals. Guess what. I'm watching them tonight, and it's pretty hard not to conclude they've abdicated that responsibility.