Posted on Thu, Jul. 24, 2003 

Small towns face identity crisis
Challenge: Enjoying growth while trying to keep their uniqueness
JENNIFER TALHELM
Staff Writer

Concord Mayor Scott Padgett loves his Victorian downtown but frets about its future.

The city of nearly 60,000 more than doubled over the past decade and has become a haven for newcomers seeking low taxes and neighborhood schools.

Many have closer ties to Charlotte than Concord and don't even know the town is more than 200 years old. Longtime residents are shocked to see farms and trees bulldozed for new subdivisions.

"People are scared of what's happening," Padgett said.

From Rock Hill to Kannapolis, towns circling Charlotte are in the midst of an identity crisis as they try to figure out how to handle change. Many communities on the fringes of the growth want to preserve their personalities, fearing they'll lose the sense of place that made them attractive.

The Charlotte-Gastonia-Salisbury metro area, a 13-county region, is among the country's fastest-growing metropolitan areas, with about 2 million people. It's expected to double during the next three decades, roughly equaling the current population of metro Atlanta.

The growth is dramatic. The once-tiny Union County town of Indian Trail exploded from about 1,900 people in 1990 to nearly 14,000 today. Concord's Cabarrus County neighbor, Harrisburg, nearly tripled to 4,800 people in the same span.

The border between Mecklenburg and the surrounding counties is blurring. In some places, the crown logo on Charlotte's street signs is the only clue you've crossed the line between Mecklenburg and the next county.

In response, communities are getting creative. Consider:

• Cities including Gastonia, York, S.C., and Rock Hill are sprucing up sidewalks and adding antique-looking street lamps to create a nostalgic small-town atmosphere.

• York County leaders are considering ways to preserve the county's farming heritage by conserving open space and drawing development to the center cities.

• Weddington, in Union County, is using strict zoning rules to keep its identity as a place with nice homes and lots of open space.

Some towns are already seeing successes.

Padgett was tickled earlier this month when more than 6,000 people ignored the rain and packed downtown Concord to admire antique cars and lick double-dip cones from the new ice cream shop.

The Great Race, a 4,000-mile vintage car rally, made a stop through Concord July 1 -- the same day the Cabarrus Creamery, a beloved local ice cream tradition, re-opened downtown.

"Our downtown is more prosperous and vibrant than it has been in years and years and years," he said.

It's not that most of the communities have anything against Charlotte, exactly. They acknowledge that their success is directly tied to Charlotte's.And most of the communities embrace growth. They like the shops and restaurants and tax revenue it brings. But leaders across the region want to make sure the lines between Charlotte and their own towns are clear.

Concord, for example, is working hard to make sure people know its name. When a gargantuan outlet mall was built there, leaders insisted on the name "Concord Mills." It's now the No. 2 attraction in North Carolina.

The fear of losing identity is a natural growing pain, said Bill McCoy, retired director of UNC Charlotte's Urban Institute. "The loss of identity words are code words for, `We don't want to be a bedroom community,' " he said.

Some of the fear is warranted, he added. "If growth is occurring, some of that is going to happen no matter what."

So much has been lost already, say many longtime residents across the area. Acres of cotton and watermelon farms have been paved over in Union County near Stallings and Indian Trail.

Shuttered mills in Gastonia, Rock Hill, Concord and other towns serve as hulking brick reminders of the days when people lived near their jobs instead of driving 45 minutes to Charlotte.

The employees at the 80-year-old Waldrop Supply appliance store, not far from Rock Hill's Main Street, reminisced recently about the days when downtown was so crowded on weekends, it was hard to move around. "I do like change," Manager Joe Simpson said. But he's sad to see the buildings torn down and shops closed.

Simpson himself ran a feed store until business got so bad, he had to close it five years ago. "I think there's a personal touch that's been lost."

But Simpson and his co-workers are pleased to see some historic businesses getting a new life.

Historic Rock Hill rehabbed an old Gulf filling station across the street, where traveling politicians once delivered raucous stump speeches. It's now an eclectic restaurant owned by California transplants, who were drawn by Winthrop University and smitten by the downtown's potential.

Owner David Coccia hopes the city will extend restoration efforts from Main Street to his restaurant so people feel comfortable walking throughout downtown.

"We think it's a nice little community," he said. "I like the old buildings. We bought into the promise."

In other places, growth is creating new communities from once-rural crossroads.

Longtime residents remember when Indian Trail and Stallings in Union County were one-stoplight towns surrounded by farms.

Now the line between Mecklenburg and Union is almost imperceptible along U.S. 74.

Mayor Lucy Drake said Stallings is afraid of becoming nothing but a "cut-through town." So they're crafting their first downtown. Stallings recently got its first bank and shopping center and started a police department.

"I can't wait 'til we have our police cars that say `Town of Stallings' on them," Drake said. "It will be the first time we have anything that has our identity."

Efforts to restrict growth in Union County and elsewhere have churned up opponents.

It's a hot political topic in Weddington. There, some think strict new rules requiring half of developable land be set aside as open space are the best way to protect the town's character.

Opponents see it as an unreasonable restriction on their rights. Angry residents have waged an Internet campaign against Mayor Ed Howie and the city council, complete with the e-mail address, "unhappy@weddington 28104.com."

Still others say area towns aren't doing enough.

UNC Charlotte's McCoy points out that despite all the smart-growth talk, many neighborhoods being built don't connect to each other. People still have to get in their cars and drive down a highway to get downtown or to other attractions -- impeding efforts to preserve an identity.

Small towns suddenly have traffic jams at rush hour, and residents worry about pollution.

People moved to Charlotte's surrounding communities to get away from such urban problems, said York County councilman Rick Lee.

"We have what people are looking for now," he said. "And we are rapidly converting it into what people left."

Posted on Thu, Jul. 24, 2003 

Managing growth
Charlotte area needs regional as well as local planning

Observer staff writer Jennifer Talhelm's survey of the future of towns surrounding Charlotte offers a timely reminder that change will occur whether or not local governments have a sensible plan for managing it. Towns with a vision for their future will take steps to control change. Towns without a vision will be controlled by it.

But a strong local vision coupled with sensible planning isn't all that's needed. Some challenges are beyond local control, yet they affect the towns dramatically, for they determine the health of the region. By 2035, planners anticipate an additional 1.4 million in the area within 40 miles of Charlotte. If those 1.4 million people are spread out in single-family, large-lot developments, it will be a regional disaster. That probably won't happen because the region's air quality is already endangered by growth that virtually requires every trip to be made by automobile. Something must change.

That change should include creation of a regional planning authority, such as already exists in many states. The authority would represent the region and plan the location of infrastructure -- water and sewer, roads, schools, etc. Local governments would use their planning and zoning authority within that regional overlay. In addition, the Charlotte region now has four transportation planning organizations, each with its own priorities. That's a prescription for disaster. The legislature should merge the four into one that is charged with developing a regional plan.

Most of the towns surrounding Charlotte didn't spring up as bedroom communities for Charlotte's workforce. Some are centuries old, with their own history and culture. Yet locals who know and value that heritage are in danger of being swamped by newcomers who know little about the communities except that taxes are low and the commute to Charlotte is tolerable.

Therein lies a challenge. If the towns are to continue to be something more than just suburban Charlotte by another name, they must assert their own uniqueness and muster the will and ingenuity to preserve it.

It won't happen if all the land in and around a community is developed with single-family homes on large lots connected by curving streets often ending in cul-de-sacs. It may happen if, under a regional master plan, communities develop a vision that encourages sensible relationships of open space, recreational opportunities, jobs, single- and multi-family housing and retail opportunities, all linked by a transportation system that encourages free flow of traffic and offers a mass transit option. It will happen if the region and its communities develop such a vision and follow it.

Some towns show signs of doing just that. Rock Hill, Huntersville and Davidson, to cite three examples, have taken admirable steps to shape their future. There are plenty of examples close at hand, good and bad, to learn from. What's needed that isn't taking shape yet is a planning body with the future of the region as its responsibility. That needs to happen, and soon.