For every kid who goes on to win an Olympic medal, there are dozens who trade their youth, and their parents’ wealth, for a grueling practice schedule only to find themselves, in the end, competing briefly on the hallowed fields with the greats, but a quarter of a second on their final score away from glory.
Despite their awe inspiring sacrifices, their names quickly fade from public memory and their faces recede into a sea of many as they fall into obscurity.
That’s what happened to Charlotte over the last decade. This chart represents Charlotte’s run at the winner’s circle and its brief moment on the field with the greats around mid-decade. Charlotte elites’ highest ambition was a permanent place among the great up and coming destination cities, to be listed next to Austin, Denver, Portland, Houston and Atlanta, a class of hip, hot cities thought to not only be world class destinations, but to be the next crop on track to rival Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and the like in the next century.
To rival Atlanta, you have to get on the field with Atlanta, and before the recession, we did.
The cost? Charlotte’s youth and a sum I put at well over $1 billion to build us into a touristy destination hot enough to attract youthful up and comers and entertain them at night after they staffed the nation’s second largest financial center by day.
On the list of what we spent that money on was light rail, the trolley, the beginnings of the street car, about $200 million in roadwork to enhance uptown for mass transit, the convention center, various uptown development packages along the rail line and to support the convention center, both arenas, airport enhancements, the NASCAR Hall of Fame, various arts museums and campuses, over $100 million worth of public funding for the Arts & Science Council over a decade, the land for uptown baseball, the greenway and a hundred other giveaways and enticements big and small. These bloated the city and the county tax base and made competing for business difficult and funding things that matter to most businesses, like roads, nearly impossible.
With the financial center it was all built to anchor and sustain teetering on he brink of oblivion, it will be decades before Charlotte is regularly mentioned in the winner’s circle again. We should have concentrated on luring the middle class with good roads, good schools and low taxes. These things attract a diverse business base that sustains you over the long term and positions you for slower, but surer growth. We desperatedly needed a serious business recruitment and diversification program like Raleigh has, but city leaders were never interested in doing much more than placating the banks and building them a world class office park and playground uptown.
They thought it would be enough, and we almost made it. We stepped briefly into the winner’s circle. But all we got for it was this chart, to clip and hang on our wall — to remember, because few will.
