I had some interesting conversation at a shindig last night about the planned growth for my town, Carrboro. There is a great deal of development coming to our downtown area in the next few years. All of it seems just a bit out of place until you realize how quickly our state, and the greater “Triangle” area is growing. In fact, this year N.C. eclipsed N.J. to become the 10th most populous state. And we’re still growing.
Nonetheless, I learned that two large parking lots downtown will be going away with the addition of all these new buildings. Plus, the neighborhood street-parking will be permit protected to help out the folks who live near downtown. Sooooo… considering our free buses stop running at 8pm and don’t run fully on the weekends do they expect people to patronize all this new business-tax-base?
Growth is a hard problem, but N.C.’s its getting some recognition . In fact, a friend sent me a link to a good article about N.C.’s growth problems, through the eyes of a Californian. Its an interesting perspective. One very good point the author makes is that N.C.’s growth has to be seen through the historical filter of a state moving from an agrarian society to whatever it is becoming. California skipped the agrarian step thanks to the gold rush.
Like the rest of the South, North Carolina must struggle every day with the dream of being rural and the reality of being urban. That’s what makes it increasingly difficult to keep growth good.
I think about the town I grew up in through that filter, and I suppose I see Carrboro through it as well. N.C. is not the simple place it once was. I am grateful for that, but always a little nostalgic for the old state too.
Yesterday was live-music day here in Carrboro. After a brief spot of work at Carrboro’s own “Open Eye Cafe” and a quick lunch at Carrboro’s own “Akai Hana” sushi restaurant, it was time to hear some tunes. First up was the Obama Early Voting Rally (I only vote on election day thankyou, I like ceremony) featuring Chapel Hill stalwarts Superchunk opening for Arcade Fire. The show was outside at the Carrboro’s own “Carrboro Town Commons” and was packed with people. The weather was beautiful and everyone had a great time. A bunch of us headed to my main man Fred’s (Carrboro’s own) house for grillin’ and chillin’ afterwards.
We left that a bit early to take care of the dog, sit for a moment, and then head out to watch The Pressure Boys play a show at Carrboro’s own “Cat’s Cradle”. The Pressure Boys owned Chapel Hill long before Superchunk ever did and were an integral part of my rock-n-roll education as I used to devour their shows in high-school and college. They were playing this reunion show to raise money for CF research too. It was a great show and once again, everyone had a great time.
However, all this “great time’in” in Carrboro has done wore me out. Crap, I’m actually sore from all that.
Above I share with you a shot from the Superchunk portion of the day – That’s Laura Balance on bass. If you’d like to see some more shots from the rally, look here.
Update: Fred makes the following note in his twitter: “Carrboro should do that every friday.” – Agreed.
This may only matter to a very few of the very few folks who read my blog – but, we have gotten some substantial rain today and are expecting even more this week! Pretty big news considering the unbelievably bad drought we’ve been having. It still won’t get us back up to “normal” but it still might put a small glimmer of hope in a few city manager’s eyes.
It appears that Cindy Sheehan is invading Carrboro today to lunch with our mayor.
Like anyone who is attached to their town, I like to think the my town is important and has something to offer to the world stage. But let’s get real here. She is going to talk to the mayor of a town which has less than 20,000 people. If she were to include the mayor of Chapel Hill (we border directly with them and share fire, police, and schools) she would bump that number to ~65,000. But she isn’t, she’s just talking to the Carrboro mayor – under 20,000. Hell, if she waited for the UNC students to come back in Chapel Hill she’d triple her numbers.
Those 20,000 probably all favor impeachment (I’m of the camp that a good, juicy hearing would probably lead to impeachment, so lets start there) so why come here ? Most of us agree with her. If there are protesters, they are likely to be following her and from other places. She should go places where people haven’t thought about it. She should go to Cary where all they think about is which mini-van seat the nappy just rolled under. Get them to think about what’s going on, not the Carrbored. Right?
Oh well, as long as she quits hanging out with Hugo Chavez.
