How Wachovia sale affects Charlotte growth

No one knows, of course, what the loss of Wachovia bank from Charlotte will mean long-term. Will it stop the tower under construction? I think that's unlikely. But an oversupply of office space may cause uptown rents to sink. Call it "affordable housing for offices."

(Note, Wachovia Corp. will remain headquartered here, but it won't own the retail bank.)

Here's one early assessment, from UNC Charlotte's Urban Institute director Jeff Michael:

"It just seems to me, as someone who gets paid in part to observe Charlotte and its progress, that something significant and historic just happened here about which we can't even begin to predict the consequences. 

"On the one hand, we may have just witnessed the beginning of the end of Charlotte's upward trajectory, or alternatively, we may be getting ready to see just how resilient this city really is. Either way, it's going to be a major story that unfolds over many years, and not just over the next six months."

Lots of us are wondering whether that huge 48-story Wachovia office tower under construction will ever be finished.  I bet it is. 

Here's what we know:

• Of its 1.5 million square feet, the bank was to have taken about half. 
  
• Duke Energy is the second largest tenant of the 48-story building, leasing about 240,000 square feet
  
• In June the bank announced Deloitte LLP, the accounting and consulting firm, would lease about 82,000 square feet – third largest tenant. 
  
• Wake Forest's Babcock Graduate School of Management is another anchor tenant. 
  
• In June, Wachovia said the building was fully leased.
  

Why shouldn't Charlotte lead?

I've been taking some time off after working as the editor of the 2008 Citistates Report, which debuted in Sunday's Observer. If you read it, you may recall that writers Curtis Johnson and Neal Peirce suggested the inside-the-beltway crowd isn't going to pass meaningful legislation on controlling greenhouse gas emissions – and thereby save the globe from grave peril – and that the best hope lies with "bold, visionary urban regions."

Or maybe state regions?

This week marks the formal start of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. It's a carbon cap-and-trade program among 10 northeastern states from Maine south to Maryland. Other regions, and California, are watching to see how it works.

But to quote Peirce and Johnson, why not Charlotte? Why shouldn't this region become the first metro region to try something similar? To be innovative on energy? To lead?

If you're thinking "Why worry about all this energy stuff when the nation's financial system is in crisis?" here's a possible answer.

It's a report from my friend, Christine Gorman, a former Time magazine staffer and current free-lance science and health writer, who was at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting in New York.

The plenary session yesterday [Wednesday] was kind of a sleepy affair until Al Gore got all worked up and said "clean coal is a lie. It's like healthy cigarettes" and argued that the current financial crisis is nothing compared to what's going to happen with the environment. "The world has several trillion dollars in sub-prime carbon assets," he says. Then he went on to call for a national "smart grid" for electricity and a carbon tax to reduce the payroll tax.

North Carolina showed some initiative with its Clean Smokestacks Act several years ago, to help cut down on air pollution and ozone. Surely it's time for some similar initiative to deal with the even larger problem of greenhouse gas emissions.

University Place: Bad design hurt a bright idea

Here’s another chapter of the old story: Bad design can undermine even the best intentions.

I caught up with former UNC Charlotte Vice Chancellor Doug Orr last week at a breakfast meeting of University City Partners to note the 25th anniversary of the groundbreaking for University Place.

Orr, now president emeritus of Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, is a widely respected figure in this region. He was key to the creation of University Place in the early 1980s, which was a groundbreaking effort by a state university to shape the development near it. The place drew tours of planners from all over the world.

In those days mixed-use development (homes and stores and offices all mixed together, the way they have been in cities until the mid-20th century) was viewed with suspicion here by residents and developers alike. Orr and UNCC colleagues Jim Clay and Al Stuart worked like dogs to educate people on the value of mixed-used development, to pull together a plan and see it executed. So did numerous other people and institutions. Finally, University Place was born.

But what should have been a triumph of good city planning simply doesn’t work as a neighborhood. With all those good intentions, the project design is deeply flawed. It’s multi-use, but not truly mixed use.

The design is, inherently, post-WWII suburbia. Homes are separated from the small, but very pleasant retail area around the artificial lake. The rest of the place is big box stores and chain restaurants and surface parking lots. It needed a street grid, with stores and homes interspersed along sidewalks. It needed, basically, New Urbanist design. Compare University Place to Baxter Town Center in Fort Mill to get an idea of What Might Have Been. And it needed city zoning and building standards that would allow it. They weren't in place in the 1980s. The other component institution, such as the University Hospital and a branch of the public library, were built with standard suburbia models. They are isolated pods sitting in parking lots, without sidewalks or connections other than clogged traffic arteries.

In the 1990s, UNCC under then-Chancellor Jim Woodward turned its attention elsewhere. The rest of the University Place property became a Big Box Bonanza. The surrounding area suffered from the same disastrous planning.

Charlotte’s elected officials and appointed planning commissioners in the late 1980s and 1990s chose the “let the marketplace decide” philosophy. The marketplace – as it does – created short-term profits and the ugly development that conventional suburban zoning rules produce: horrific traffic and an unwalkable section of the city.

It was a tragic missed opportunity for a part of the city that deserved far better. Those who worked so hard for University Place deserved better. The whole UNCC community deserved better.

Today, some determined people, including current UNCC Chancellor Phil Dubois and University City Partners have undertaken the long and expensive process of retrofitting this standard-issue sprawl into something that will endure and enhance UNCC’s future. Transit may well be the factor that will save University City from its past. But it's a daily, visible reminder that no matter the good intentions, without good design, even good initiatives can falter.

New future for Eastland Mall? (Part 2)

A reader e-mails to point to a redevelopment in the old Sears Building on Lake Street in Minneapolis. She opines: "The Art Deco Sears building is much more attractive, of course, than Eastland, but the idea is the same as what you’re talking about."

And it's a few miles from downtown, not out in the suburban neighborhoods such as Carowinds, and a bit closer in than Eastland.

Want to read the original posting, with comments? Here's a link. Or just look below.

New future for Eastland Mall?

If you haven't visited Plaza Fiesta Carolinas, you should. You might be glimpsing an early version of the future for the Eastland Mall site.

Eastland is a fading ’70s-era regional shopping mall, in a part of Charlotte that’s seen huge demographic changes in the past 30 years, with an influx of immigrants and more racially integrated neighborhoods. The mall’s owner, Columbus, Ohio-based Glimcher Realty Trust, has had it on the market since 2005. It said in July it would no longer subsidize it. Store hours have been reduced; the non-anchor stores aren’t even open Mondays or at night. And the city of Charlotte now holds an option to buy two of the five parcels at the 70-acre property.

Plaza Fiesta is a newly opened, Latino-themed enclosed mall in a re-used building next to Carowinds, just off I-77 on the N.C.-S.C. line. It's where the old Carolina Pottery and outlet mall used to be. New owners from Atlanta, home to the first Plaza Fiesta, bought it and upfitted the interior to resemble a Latin American village.

The nonprofit forum, Civic by Design, hosted Plaza Fiesta architects David Schroeder and Sean Slater from Norcross, Ga., on Tuesday night. They talked about modeling the interior after real towns in Mexico, even to the extent of replicating owner Arturo Adonay's (corrected from earlier misspelling) grandmother's house in Mexico.

It’s laid out with streets and “alleys.” There’s a central plaza, a fountain and a lot of kid- and family-friendly spaces, such as a huge playground and a video arcade. It’s becoming a popular draw, even for Anglo families, the architects said. Yes, they’re going to be giving a positive spin, but I visited it with friends one recent Sunday afternoon and saw lots of people eating, strolling shopping.

But I was most interested in another aspect: its role as incubator for small, locally owned (in this case mostly but not exclusively Latino-owned) businesses. Much of the interior is filled with booths, arranged in trade-show layout, which play something of the role kiosks do at conventional malls – except those kiosks are likely to be run by national chains, not mom and pop businesses. In Charlotte, Plaza Fiesta officials visited Latino businesses along South Boulevard and recruited some of them to open spots at Plaza Fiesta.

Is it faux? Of course. Shopping malls are all replicas of true shopping streets in towns and cities. Is it in the wrong place, planning-wise? Sure. I asked Slater and Schroeder about those concerns, and they pretty much said, yep, it would be better in a more central spot, next to transit, and it would be better if it were in a real neighborhood with real streets and real houses instead of fake ones. “It is what it is,” Slater said.

But, according to them, it’s working as a way to give small entrepreneurs a toe-hold, it’s attracting crowds with lots of planned events, and it’s functioning as well as anywhere else in Charlotte as a gathering spot for the geographically dispersed Latino community. It’s safe, it’s pleasant, and – assuming they’re telling the truth – making money.

Here’s the Eastland hook: In the audience was Tom Warshauer, a city economic development manager whose assignments include Eastland Mall (also Independence Boulevard, and North Tryon Street). He was intrigued by the concept of a marketplace of small businesses arranged around a plaza, acting as a community gathering area. Maybe he was doing just a little daydreaming – don’t we all? – but he talked of the possibility of creating a Plaza Fiesta-type incubator space in a real neighborhood, in a more central and transit-served location – Eastland.

Just remember, you read it here first.

'Parkway' N.C.-style = boondoggle

They're calling it a "parkway"? That's about as Orwellian as the Republicans running a presidential campaign AGAINST Washington – you know, where they've held the White House?

Have you ever driven Connecticut's Merritt Parkway? Now that's a parkway. Here's one key fact: It prohibits truck and commercial traffic. So even when it's jammed with traffic, you're not hemmed in by tractor-trailers driving through your tailpipe or blowing you off the road. It's a noticeably more pleasant experience.

North Carolina's so-called Garden Parkway, a proposed toll road through western Mecklenburg County and eastern Gaston County, isn't – really – being built because it will relieve clogged roads. It's a development-enhancing road. And part of the rationale is to help the truck traffic from an intermodal (yucky word, it means dealing with trucks, trains and planes) facility planned at Charlotte's airport.

Read about how some transportation planners say the road isn't needed. And read about how two state senators (David Hoyle of Gaston and Robert Pittenger of Mecklenburg, who's running for lieutenant governor) have bought land along the proposed route Because of local politicians' continuing inability to say no to developers, those "parkway" interchanges are destined to become as full of glop as those around Charlotte's outerbelt highway. Tip o the hat to Observer reporter Steve Harrison for those stories. Pittenger, you'll note, recused himself from two votes that moved the parkway proposal through the legislature.

The 67 miles of the Merritt and Wilbur Cross parkways are lined with trees and woods, and the Merritt has a series of architecturally interesting bridges, designed by one architect. Both opened as toll roads but tolls were removed in 1988.

Even New Jersey has a parkway that prohibits truck traffic: The Garden State Parkway (not to be confused with our proposed Garden Parkway) was built in the early 1950s and prohibits trucks on the northern third of the route.

Somehow I don't think the N.C.-style "parkway" will be a "parkway" at all. New name suggestion: The Garden Boondoggle.

Quaint (??!!) Pineville

I came across this article about Pineville, by two planners: Kevin Icard, city planning director, and planner Travis Morgan.

"Pineville is a historic city filled with landmarks, rustic antique shops and bustling downtown district reminiscent of the 1950s," they write. Well, true that, if you're talking about downtown Pineville. The town is right to try to protect it. But what they have done -- requiring new buildings to have brick facades -- won't protect the cozy turn-of-the-century downtown at all.

Even more significant, compared to the rest of Pineville, its downtown is like a b-b rolling around a six-lane highway. The rest of Pineville is the worst of suburban retail sprawl: strip centers, power centers, a enclosed regional mall, big box stores clear to the horizon -- all of it unwalkable, all of it a traffic nightmare at virtually all times of day. Pineville is famed throughout the metro Charlotte region as the worst possible example of unplanned retail development -- not that that has stopped other places (Concord Mills in Concord, University City, Albemarle Road, etc.) from trying to steal that designation.

It is famous in local circles, also, for refusing to let Charlotte's newly opened light rail line into town. The wildly successful transit line now ends at the Pineville city limits.

I will give Pineville kudos for saying no to a Wal-Mart supercenter a few years back, and I will give its planners kudos for trying to save downtown Pineville. But I'm pretty sure that an ordinance requiring every new building to have a brick facade isn't the way to do it, however.

Which U.S. city has best planners?

Which city in the country has the best planning department?
I'm on the e-mail list for a group of planners-architects-landscape architects-nonprofit activists and journalists who've all taken part, as I did in 2005-06, in the Knight Program in Community Building at the University of Miami. A question went out recently to the group:

• Which mid-sized to large cities have the best planning departments in the country?

I was interested in the dozen or so responses that came in. They went about like this:

• "Nashville?"
• "Denver?"
• "Rick Bernhardt Nashville" [That was from a Tennessee developer. Bernhardt is Nashville's planning director.]
• "Montgomery, Ala." [From the same developer. He had a lovely quote at the end of his e-mail, which is worth repeating here: "Every increment of construction should be done in such a way as to heal the city." -- from Christopher Alexander, architect and author. ]
• "I think Portland, Oregon, probably belongs on this list."
• "Portland has done some great things. ... A list of other forward thinking departments should include Fayetteville, Arkansas."
• "Now that Harriet Tregoning is heading the DC Planning Department, that could very well join the list."
• "One would hope Milwaukee qualifies, having had John Norquist as mayor and Peter Park (now in Denver) as head of planning."
• "The cities of West Palm Beach and Stuart, Fla., might be worth looking into."

There you have it. Totally unscientific and based as much on reputation as on reality, but interesting nonetheless. Any planner-types out there care to second the above opinions, or disagree, or brag on their own cities?

The Amtrak candidate

So now we have a vice presidential candidate who uses Amtrak every day. Joe Biden commutes from Washington to his home in Delaware. If he's elected, some people think that bodes well for rail travel. Would be nice to have some Amtrak champion with clout in DC.

It's worth noting that John McCain has been an Amtrak opponent for years. But who knows? Maybe his veep choice will be another train fan.

Planetizen.com offers this item about Biden and Amtrak.

While I was in Boston last year, we took the train to New York and I noticed that between Boston and New York Amtrak was something like nine Acela trains a day (that's the speedier, slightly nicer train), as well as almost hourly regular trains. They ran on time, and were quite handy.

Made me envious. While we were in NYC's Penn Station awaiting a train back to Boston, I heard an announcement that the train from New Orleans -- which is one of the few trains that comes through Charlotte -- was arriving ... three hours late. Figures.

What gov candidates SHOULD be saying

I caught up today with Charlotte Chamber president Bob Morgan (below, left), and asked what questions he thought voters should be asking of North Carolina's gubernatorial candidates.
He didn't hesitate for even an eye-blink: Transportation, he said.

1. First, he said, ask Lt. Gov. Bev Perdue (the Democrat) and Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory (the Republican) whether transportation funding is a priority for them. (As an experienced questioner, I'd say ask them their top three -- or maybe five, whatever -- priorities. THEN you'd see if "transportation" or "transportation funding" is among them.

2. Second, he said, ask how the state should pay for its transportation needs in the future. Some state officials estimate that by 2030 there will be a $64 billion (not million, billion) gap between state transportation needs and funds.

So far, according to Morgan, candidates are saying, "Fix the N.C. Department of Transportation," meaning (what follows are my words, not his) get rid of the cronyism and inefficiency that we've all come to know and love. Candidates also say they'd stop transferring money from the Highway Fund into the general fund.

Fixing DOT and stopping the transfer of funds may well be excellent ideas, but they don't solve the problem of there being not enough money to pay for the state's transportation needs: maintenance, new roads, maintenance, new transit systems, maintenance, better rail service, and did I mention maintenance?

Where does that money come from?

Of course, the answer has to be, "From the taxpayers." Maybe it's a sales tax, maybe it's a gas tax, maybe the state shuts down its education department or UNC Chapel Hill and transfers the money to the transportation department. (Note, I am NOT recommending that.) Regardless of how it's done, the money is taxpayer money.

Don't hold your breath waiting on either candidate to say so, though. Both Perdue (left) and McCrory (right) are smart enough to know the transportation mess isn't going to be solved without more money. And both are smart enough to know it's really stupid to talk about new taxes during a campaign.

Finding the Naked City

To answer Karina, who wrote:

"I sure wish this blog would attract some less nasty folk. (Why is it not listed under blogs on the website by the way?)."

You can find the blog if, upon opening CharlotteObserver.com, you click on the tab at the top labeled "Opinion" and then on blogs/columnists. Or click on the regular "Opinion" page and you'll see a listing for my Saturday op-ed column, and a teeny link to the Naked City blog.

I'm trying to convince the Web page designers to give this (and other blogs) more visibility. But for now, try bookmarking it, or or set up an RSS feed.

As to the tenor of the comments, let me remind everyone I police the comments and remove insulting or crude ones. If you disagree with me or with anyone else, that's fine. It helps provoke discussion. If you insult me or others or use profanity (even with ** for letters) or discuss the uses of corncobs or call people hillbillies or rednecks or other insults, your comments will be deleted. Stay civil and we'll all have a better time.

Finally, another reminder that one day soon, this blog will migrate from blogger.com onto a CharlotteObserver.com platform and you'll have to register and provide a name for your comments. So no more comments from "anonymous."

Student parking: Fewer spots, higher fees

The high cost of free parking, chapter 29:

Raleigh high school students are upset about a plan to raise their yearly parking fee by $50, the News and Observer reports. It would go from $120 to $170 a year. In 2005, the Wake school board doubled the fee to $240 a year, but rescinded it after students complained. Charlotte-Mecklenburg students pay $25 a year. Durham students pay $75; Chapel Hill-Carrboro students pay $100.

No parking is free, it only looks that way. The cost of the land, the grading and the asphalt to pave school parking lots is absorbed by taxpayers. In 2006, a CMS architect told me each parking space the system builds costs $4,000 -- not including the land cost. Those same taxpayers also shell out for a complete mass transit system for students only -- school buses. (Note, school bus costs come from two different pots of public money: county and state.)

Call me heartless. My driver's license-toting high school daughter would shriek if she knew I was writing this. But I think schools should offer less parking and charge more for it. Yes, it would probably cost more for high school bus routes, but maybe not that much more. They've got to hire drivers anyway, and drive the routes for the kids who do take the bus. Many of the buses end up with empty seats anyhow, because so many kids drive. (OK, OK, offer a "hardship" option to low-income students if they can prove to the principal they need to drive to school and can't afford a higher parking fee.)

If parking cost more, more kids would walk, bicycle, take the school bus or a city bus, or carpool. The pocketbook talks.

A little light reading

A few links for you today, as today I have to work on the part of my job that takes up the bulk of my work time: writing editorials, an op-ed column and helping produce the daily Opinion pages of the Observer. So happy reading, y'all.

-- MIT scientists say the country could slash the amount of fuel guzzled by a gas-guzzling nation by 30% to 50% by 2035, with such changes as lighter cars, hybrids and fuel cell cars. In other words, newer technologies. Here's a link to a piece about it. Note, the words "MIT" and "scientists." That means it's not light reading.

-- Outside magazine's list of what it deems the Best Towns 2008. No Carolinas towns made this particular list, though Wilmington made the "Rest of the Best" category.

Excerpt: "WILMINGTON, NORTH CAROLINA (POP. 95,900) ... With nearby beaches along the Cape Fear coast, an ever-expanding Riverwalk, a National Register historic district comprising more than 230 blocks, and a renewed economy that has been fueled partly by an active filmmaking sector, "Wilmywood" has become much more than a shadow of its former self."

-- NY Times: Downtowns across the U.S. see streetcars in their future. Mentions Charlotte.

-- San Jose tries to fight sprawl from the San Francisco Chronicle.

Survey results: Uptown by car, foot, bike

The city, as part of its study of I-277 (the famous "freeway cap") study, conducted a survey of motorists, pedestrians and bicyclists who use uptown. A synopsis of the results is part of this PowerPoint presentation, which was given last Monday. If you can follow that link, the PowerPoint contains a drawing (above) of one possibility for what South Tryon might look like in years to come. The artist was Ed DeLara of the consulting firm HNTB, which conducted the design workshop pro-bono.

Here are some highlights from the survey results.

From motorists:
Commuters and visitors think signs that list more exits and the distances to them, and better lighting on signs, would improve I-277. They think more signs directing drivers to I-277 access streets are needed.
Other concerns commonly voiced by commuters and visitors:

• Difficulty merging onto and across I-277 to reach their exit.
• Fast and aggressive driving on I-277
• Inadequate signage to alert drivers to when and where their exit is.
• It's not wide enough for a “breakdown lane” to get fender-benders and breakdowns out of traffic.
• Too dark, poor visibility on several stretches of I-277 at night.
• Poor driving conditions in the rain; standing water.
• Trash and litter.

From pedestrians:

• The chief complaints are the prevalence of jaywalking and the aggressiveness of uptown drivers who speed through intersections and make turns into pedestrian crosswalks.
• Also, the sidewalks across I-277 at Tryon and College are not perceived as pedestrian-friendly. Sidewalks, particularly on College, are narrower and traffic moves faster than in the center of the city. There was also a comment that these sidewalks are dirtier and more littered.
• Darkness and poor visibility under the I-277 overpasses.

From bicyclists:

• Bikers' chief concern is being visible to drivers who are driving fast and aggressively, often distracted by cell phone conversation.
• Concern over the speed with which drivers exit onto streets such as South Boulevard and College from the right, where the cyclists are riding.
• Darkness and poor visibility under the I-277 overpasses. (Gee, anyone notice a pattern?)

Just what IS "pedestrian-friendly"?

Some very quick reactions to a couple of comments from previous posts:

"Cato," a regular reader, was talking about how some downtown streets are great, but others aren't very exciting. Yes, they have sidewalks, but . . . He says, "The Wachovia Securities stock ticker board at the corner of College & MLK could have been a minor landmark, but it's in such a dead zone practically no one sees it."

Commenting on an earlier posting, "Anonymous" asked: How are you defining "pedestrian friendly? My neighborhood of Spring Valley is very pedestrian friendly where you could walk continuously for several miles without the bother of busy intersections, plenty of sidewalk and wide streets for bikes, jogging strollers, etc."

I define pedestrian-friendly as having good sidewalks that are wide enough for several people at a time, including those with strollers, and having intersections designed so they don't terrify you if you have to cross. They have relatively short blocks so you can get somewhere without going too far out of your way. They have destinations, so you're not walking aimlessly only for exercise (though I like to walk for exercise).

In my definition, really pedestrian friendly streets need something interesting to look at. Different people think different things are interesting, of course. I like to look at people's gardens, landscaping and big old trees. This bores my husband something terrible. He likes store windows, sidewalk cafes and lots of people on the sidewalk.

But most everyone can agree, I think, that surface parking lots, parking garage entrances, loading docks and long blank walls are not pedestrian friendly. Those are, as Cato suggests, "dead zones."

How do you avoid them? Simple (if not easy). Encase parking garages in ground-floor retail, like Seventh Street Station. Put surface parking lots behind buildings.

I like to walk uptown, and some streets are quite comfortable for pedestrians: E.g., Tryon Street. Others are awful: College Street between Trade and Fourth, or Fourth Street between Church and Poplar.

Got nominations for great pedestrian streets? Or horrific ones?

CDOT: "Don't Walk Here" Wall Doomed

Here's the word from Danny Pleasant, interim director of the Charlotte Department of Transportation, responding to my post earlier today about this pedestrian obstruction on Brevard Street as you head from Fourth toward Third Street:

Good news, Mary. We have a project to convert Brevard Street between Trade Street and Stonewall Street into a more pedestrian oriented, two-way, two-lane street. It will follow the current work of converting Caldwell Street to two-way operation. We are in the process of selecting a design firm. The process should finish up in October. The project will include sidewalks on both sides of Brevard the length of the project. It will take a couple of years to build. But when it’s done, the brick wall will be gone.

Here's what I had written earlier:

Don't you love this? Walkable Charlotte, eh?

This particular barrier to pedestrians is on Brevard Street, between Fourth and Third streets, a half a block from the Transportation Center -- a spot to which thousands of people walk daily.

Last time I asked about it, several years ago, someone at either CDOT or the city planning office told me they were waiting for that property to develop and when it did, they'd make sure the sidewalk got built. That's been several years. Guess they're still waiting. I'll see what interim CDOT chief Danny Pleasant has to say.

And to be fair, I'll say that CDOT has improved dramatically in its attention to pedestrian comforts, and that uptown Charlotte is, square foot for square foot, the largest pedestrian friendly site in the city. Does anyone know of any others that would compete for that distinction?

Yesterday: Don't Drive. Today: Don't Walk?

Don't you love this? Walkable Charlotte, eh?

This particular barrier to pedestrians is on Brevard Street, between Fourth and Third streets, a half a block from the Transportation Center -- a spot to which thousands of people walk daily.

Last time I asked about it, several years ago, someone at either CDOT or the city planning office told me they were waiting for that property to develop and when it did, they'd make sure the sidewalk got built. That's been several years. Guess they're still waiting. I'll see what interim CDOT chief Danny Pleasant has to say.

And to be fair, I'll say that CDOT has improved dramatically in its attention to pedestrian comforts, and that uptown Charlotte is, square foot for square foot, the largest pedestrian friendly site in the city. Does anyone know of any others that would compete for that distinction?

Quiz: Which local pol to attend both conventions?

City Council member James "Smuggie" Mitchell will be attending the Republican National Convention next month in St. Paul, Minn. Say what? Mitchell is a lifelong Democrat.

He's also going to the Democratic convention in Denver later this month. Mitchell will attend both conventions as president of the National Black Caucus of Local Elected Officials, a nonpartisan group that's part of the National League of Cities.

"Sometimes duty calls," he told me. And he pointed out that the top issues for cities at the moment -- foreclosures and crime -- aren't partisan issues anyway.

Confederate memorial: Why 1977?

Following up on the Confederate Memorial I stumbled across on the lawn at the old City Hall:

One commenter said: "You wonder what politicians in 2008 think about that memorial? They probably don't spend a lot of time thinking about it at all."

At least one politician wasn't thinking about it at all, because he wasn't aware of it. I called the City Council member who represents uptown Charlotte, James "Smuggie" Mitchell. Mitchell is an African American Democrat, a lifelong Charlottean. He said, "Wow. I did not know it was there. ... That's my district and I kind of pride myself on knowing what's there -- restaurants and places to visit -- and I did not know. Wow."

He thinks the monument should stay. "As an African American I was always taught to associate the Confederacy with oppression," he told me. But as he grew up, he said, he learned that "you have to respect that people fought for what they thought was right." Part of being a leader, he said, is respecting the diversity of opinions that people have.

Of course, he said "Respecting is different from embracing."

He, too, thought the 1977 timing was odd. As another commenter noted: Why erect a memorial so long after the Civil War? ... Was it erected to convince people that it is okay to be racist? Was it a reaction to blacks gaining political power and greater equality? Was it the act of ultra-conservatives that want to make this state like the clearly backward one to our south? Good people died during that war and they should be remembered. However, the fact that this was erected in 1977 suggests that this was more a reaction to modern civil rights than to fallen soldiers."

A reader e-mailed this thoughtful note:
As a Southerner who feels remorse at the conduct of my ancesters, I feel qualified to make this observation. If we remove markers such as this, we remove valuable insight into the mindsets of individuals and groups during the course of history. Someone had this erected, and others did not stop them. This is valuable information to future generations. Rather than removing it, erect another marker telling the people of the future that the people of 2008 feel remorse at the mindset of the past. Both the ones in 1865, and the ones in 1977. Removing the evidence of errors made opens us to the possibility of repeating mistakes.

And one last note: I'm a Southerner, and both my parents grew up in the South and lived there for all but five years of their lives. I've lived in the South all but six years of my life. I've lived in Charlotte for 30 years. You may not agree with what I write, but I'm no Northerner.

Surprise! Confederate memorial at City Hall

Did you know there's a Confederate Memorial on the grounds of Charlotte's old City Hall? I didn't, until I chanced to walk past it Monday morning. It's not prominent, set off to one side along Davidson Street. And by Confederate memorial standards it's modest – no statues of men on horseback. It's just a square hunk of granite with some carving. This not being South Carolina, no Confederate flag was flapping in the breeze.

"Mecklenburg County remembers with honor her gallant sons who fought in the armies of the Confederate states," it says. "With the other brave soldiers of the South, they struggled nobly for the cause of independence and constitutional self-government. Their heroic deeds will be forever honored by patriotic men and women."

Now, a Confederate memorial isn't a rare thing in the South. They were erected for decades after the Civil War and on into the early years of this century.

Then I saw, at the bottom of the granite square, this: "Erected by the Confederate Memorial Association of Charlotte, May 10, 1977"

1977! Does that strike anyone else as a bit late in the 20th century to be erecting memorials to a cause that – for all the talk about states rights and honor – saw nothing wrong with enslaving thousands of human beings? By 1977 the schools were integrated, black Americans were voting, and no one was being arrested for sitting in the front of the bus. Harvey Gantt, a black architect, was a city council member, if I'm not mistaken, and another black politician, Fred Alexander, was serving in the state Senate. Yet apparently Charlotte's city fathers and mothers were OK with putting up memorials to the Confederacy at City Hall.

I wonder what politicians in 2008 think about that memorial. I doubt they'd allow one erected today. But would any push to have it removed?