Charlotte: Our Vision
A home of diversity and new beginnings, Charlotte is a rapidly growing metropolis. The largest city in North Carolina, and one of the largest cities of the Southeast, Charlotte is home to over 800,000 people who live within the city’s borders and the surrounding towns.
Relative to other cities of its size, Charlotte is young and has great opportunity to grow. With the rise of an increasingly engaged generation, an expansion in information accessibility, the growing awareness and continued fight against racist, xenophobic, sexist, etc., tendencies within our nation, and the rising disillusionment among citizens, this website serves as a beacon of hope to all dreamers, organizers, innovators, planners, schemers, movers-and-shakers, any and all who aim to contribute to the meaningful growth of our society towards a sustainable future.
We propose these solutions—however idealistic or inconceivable—to the problems of our young city, and propose plans for the future development of the greater Charlotte area. Please explore this website and learn about the growing metropolis of Charlotte: it’s past and it’s future working from the present day.
This is our vision of Charlotte.
About Us:
To Whom It May Concern:
This site was developed by students of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in response to a prompt provided by Dr. Kyle Mays.
History 584, or American Societies from the 19th to the 20th Centuries, is a course provided by the College of Arts and Sciences Undergraduate Program, though a few students in this course are of graduate level education. A summary of History 584 is not an easy thing to obtain, our focus was so broad and varied: we studied social constructs within cities, the design of cities as polynucleated and mononucleated centers of culture, the derivation of human understanding within cities, overarching social movements of today and their formation from past issues and how these issues were derived from city formation and infrastructure, the construct of societal norms dictated and maintained by a minority, the processes and social constructs that spread repression and misinterpretation, etc.
With this information and the intellectual connections we formed between culture, race, and city, this class was tasked with the revitalization of a city. While Charlotte may be a young city, it has already faced cycles of growth, decay and renewal, all revolving around Downtown Charlotte in its suburban areas. In 1990’s, North Charlotte was today’s West Charlotte, while East Charlotte was today’s South Charlotte, while the city main has continued to grow, expanding into the sprawled suburbs. Now, gentrification has taken root in North Charlotte while East and West Charlotte fall to disrepair and neglect. These are generalizations of the areas, but the basic cycle can be recalled by many long-term Charlotte natives.
The most recent riots in Charlotte are indicative of the growing discontent of the urban population. Using the information gleaned from studying other urban settings, and the interplay between race, urban history, and culture, this class focused its attention on the Charlotte metropolis in hopes of proposing a city that provides social equity, economic prosperity, and ecological integrity, or the triple bottom line, to all inhabitants.
We encourage all members of the Charlotte community to partake in discussions to better our city, and hope that some information may be gleaned from the work this class has provided.
Yours most sincerely,
Charlotte-Natives, Urban Enthusiasts, Sustainable Thinkers, the Students of History 584
Vision for Charlotte 