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TMP Article:
When the Time Comes
 “...What has made Charleston so loved and so celebrated by generation after generation is the vitality and refinement of its human-scaled streets, its fine buildings and graceful parks....”
While cocooning and cyberspace seem to be around to stay, the winds of change seem to have shifted decisively in favor of traditional neighborhoods and shopping districts. The New Urbanism movement returned the pedestrian to a central role in the design of new mixed-use developments. Local New Urban neighborhoods such as I’On and Daniel Island have been wildly successful, drawing praise from egg-headed planning gurus, profit-minded builders and local homebuyers alike. The sidewalks of pedestrian-friendly downtown Charleston are now chocked with sweaty hordes of locals and tourists almost every day of the week.
Such enormous popularity has its downsides. Downtown home prices and commercial rents have become so expensive that only the wealthiest can afford to live there. The problem has gotten bad enough to be labeled an affordable housing “crisis.” Likewise, prices at I’On and Daniel Island have shot up as eager buyers have flocked in. Developer John Knott and the City of North Charleston have followed up with the ambitious Noisette project, which threatens to give the local poster child for urban sprawl an urbane pedestrian-oriented core.
Peninsular Charleston is fortunate to have that amenity already, although other parts of the city have not been so fortunate. Writing in favor of the gathering places initiative on behalf of the South Carolina Coastal Conservation League, Megan Terebus declares that “the City has made great strides in protecting the historic character and retaining the economic vitality of the peninsula of Charleston. The areas West of the Ashley and on James and Johns Islands are no less important and merit the same planning, great care and attention to detail.” National trends suggest the time might be right to give parts of West Ashley, James Island and Johns Island focal points of their own.
Ever on the lookout for the next big thing, trend watchers have discovered a vigorous new lifestyle species they have christened “local area nesting.” By this they mean that people are doing more things in their own neighborhoods, like meeting a few friends at the local cafe or corner bar. RoperASW, a consumer research and marketing firm, coined the “local area nesting” concept. It was quickly picked up and bandied about by dozens of national media outlets including the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and CNN. My own modest proposal is that we jump on the bandwagon and replace the gathering places term with “local area nests” at once.
What has made Charleston so loved and so celebrated by generation after generation is the vitality and refinement of its human-scaled streets, its fine buildings and graceful parks. Our fair city has given birth to a few artists and writers of distinction, as well as the deadliest war in American history, but our greatest contribution has been as an example of an urban place that has always managed to be dignified and sensuous, exciting and laid back all at once.
Amid the rough and tumble of daily life, it can be easy to take the magic of the places we inhabit for granted. But it is a powerful force. It is strong enough to lure throngs of visitors, legions of well-heeled retirees in search of a trophy home and young professionals willing to accept chronic underemployment just for the privilege of living here. At this very minute, hundreds of frustrated commuters inching along on snarled eight-lane highways in Atlanta and Charlotte are daydreaming fondly about moving to Charleston. Over the next two decades, tens of thousands of them will actually show up. They will have to fit in somewhere. Each new resident can add one more SUV to our own overburdened roads or one more pair of feet to a lively pedestrian zone. Keep ‘em off the road.
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