Charlotte sans car
I stayed there for 2 nights, and it was good
Short updates:
We’ll be in Japan for 2 weeks in June. We’ll see if the next post happens during the trip, or soon after.
We do plan on going to Expo 2025 in Osaka. Expect some kind of Expo-related content here.
My first trip away from the baby1 was a work trip to Charlotte, North Carolina.
The last place I lived before Chicago was Columbia, South Carolina, which is less than 2 hours from Charlotte by car2. So I had been to Charlotte a few times. This trip was for just 2 nights, and most of the days were spent in the office. And yet I saw a lot of things that were new to me.
Let me start with my general understanding of how Charlotte came to be, then talk about a relatively new development (trains!), before getting into food.
History of Charlotte in 200-ish words
Charlotte was founded by English colonists at the crossroads of two Native American trading paths. The first really remarkable thing in its history is the Carolina gold rush in the early 19th century. This led to the creation of the Charlotte Mint, where they were minting gold coins from all the gold being dug out in the area.
Charlotte isn’t near a big river, so the location really wasn’t great when so much trade was happening on boats. At the time of the Civil War, it was only the 5th largest city in North Carolina3. Charlotte became the largest city in the Carolinas in the 1920s, when it was a railroad hub and a textile manufacturing center.
More recently, Charlotte has been a banking town4. Bank of America came out of a small regional bank in Charlotte growing rapidly with a series of mergers. Wachovia, also based in Charlotte, had a similar history, until it was acquired by Wells Fargo during the financial crisis.
Most of the big cities in the South have been growing rapidly for the past few decades, and Charlotte fits that pattern. Even within that group, though, Charlotte is one of the least historically rich places, for better or for worse.
Cat-themed transit
Like most Southern cities, Charlotte is generally a very car-friendly city surrounded by a lot of sprawl. But it does have a train system. Since I was staying somewhat close to downtown—or Uptown, in local parlance—I was able to avoid taking a single car trip.
Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS) runs the Lynx Blue Line (light rail) and CityLynx Gold Line (streetcar). This time, I didn’t ride the Gold Line, but used the Blue Line extensively. One thing that’s really obvious when you’re on this train, or around most of the stations, is that there’s a LOT of new apartment/condo buildings along the route.
I did a Zillow search for rentals on apartments built in 2015 or later.
If you guessed that the Blue Line must run from the northeast to the southwest, you’d be correct. When the line initially opened in 2007, it extended only in the southwest direction from downtown. The northeast direction is an extension that opened in 2018. I left the area in 2017, so that explains why so much seemed new to me.
The explosion of new housing is accompanied by a large amount of businesses catering to the residents. This really is a successful case of transit-oriented development, where you allow for dense development around public transportation, and you get nice walkable neighborhoods with a lot of amenities.
After the visit, I realized that there was a post on Charlotte’s light rail from a Substack I subscribe to. It’s a good read, especially about the shortcomings that are not so apparent on the ground:
During the morning rush hours, trains heading downtown were packed. One nice thing about the trains was that it was a very smooth ride. Some people on those full trains were standing without holding onto anything.
Trains generally run about once every 15 minutes, which isn’t that great. But the schedule seemed to be very reliable. I saw a large number of people timing their walks to the station so that they could catch their train without waiting too much.
And another surprise, as I was walking on the trails next to the train tracks: drivers were very good about yielding to pedestrians and cyclists when they were supposed to. I’ve gotten too used to how terrible Chicago drivers are on this point.
Botiwalla by Chai Pani
And now, I’ll talk about some food and drink places that I enjoyed. Here’s a map.
Chai Pani is an Indian street food restaurant in Asheville, North Carolina. I actually spent more time in Asheville than in Charlotte when I lived in Columbia, and I did eat at Chai Pani once. Botiwalla is a more casual restaurant from the same people, with locations in Asheville, Atlanta, and Charlotte.
The Charlotte location is in Optimist Hall, a food hall just northeast of downtown. I did do a walk through, and saw a bunch of interesting-looking places including the Dumpling Lady, which served Sichuan dumplings and noodles. But I ended up getting most of my calories at Botiwalla, which I was eyeing from the start.
The standout was SPDP (Sev Potato Dahi Puri), which I believe is also a staple at Chai Pani. It’s flour crisps stuffed with potato, with a bunch of toppings. Fried food involving potatoes is always a great idea, but the toppings here are genius. Sweet yogurt gives you both sweet and sour. There’s funk from tamarind, and the crunchy texture from the sev noodles. It’s sensory overload in a small package.
It’s one of the best dishes I’ve had this year5.
Vicente
Vicente was a bakery and bistro, sort of within walking distance from my hotel in South End—thanks to the trail by the Blue Line. They specialize in croissants. This includes the standard flavors like chocolate and almond, but also some unusual flavors.
I do get a bit skeptical when the presentation is so Insta-friendly, but it’s hard to deny the good work involved here. 2 of the unusual croissants I tried were dulce de leche and harissa & tomato, and they worked.
Idlewild
This cocktail bar was a recommendation from the folks at American Weekender. I’m more into craft beer usually, but I trust their cocktail expertise. I needed to dispense more trust once I got in, because this place doesn’t have a menu6.
The bartender would talk to me and figure out what kind of drink I wanted, then make it. I do tend to use menus as anchors to figure out what I want at places, so this was a process of discovery for the both of us.
We first landed on the Bennett, a citrusy gin drink, to start. I liked it, but then I realized that everything I had that night was fruity, like Blue Razz Burst, a blueberry-raspberry sour ale from Wicked Weed, my favorite NC brewery. So we pivoted and settled on a Coffee Negroni to end the night.
Idlewild is within a minute walk from the 36th Street station on the Blue Line. So quite literally, without the Blue Line, it wouldn’t exist where it does, and I wouldn’t have made it there.
What I’m listening to now
My love language seems to be songs in languages I don’t understand. Here’s an album by the New Zealand singer-songwriter Marlon Williams, sung entirely in Māori.
I was going to talk about how Māori is an Austronesian language, which makes it related to Malay, Tagalog, Fijian, Hawaiian, etc., but then realized I already did that when I talked about indigenous Taiwanese music.
What I will say about these languages is that they’re quite vowel-y, like Japanese or Italian. And what that means for music is that they’re great for belting out long notes—think Italian opera. Williams definitely knows this.
“Aua Atu Rā” is a masterpiece, and the first song to be written on the album. It’s a lament by someone who is alone and hopelessly stranded on the ocean7. “Rere Mai Ngā Rau” is another highlight, a more joyful song.
And yes, it’s Lorde singing in Maōri on “Kāhore He Manu E”.
I did take a weeklong trip to Akron for the US Go Congress in 2023 without my older son.
I remember one cab ride from the Columbia airport, where the Eritrean driver told me that everyone he knows goes to Charlotte to get injera, because you couldn’t buy one in Columbia.
It was behind Wilmington and New Bern near the Atlantic coast, Raleigh, the state capital, and Fayetteville on the Atlantic Seaboard Fall Line.
And of course, Charleston in South Carolina was one of the largest cities in the country, much bigger than any of the NC cities.
It’s a Southern banking town, which means it’s a tucked-in polo shirt kind of town.
I did know about that before I went in.
You may hear “moana” in the lyrics. It means “ocean” in Maōri, as it does in Hawaiian.
Ah! Glad you enjoyed Idlewild. Vicente looks great!