Charlotte, NC: The Global Evolution of a New South City

by William Graves, Heather A. Smith, Derek H. Alderman, Owen J. Furuseth, José L.S. Gámez

Overview

The rapid evolution of Charlotte, North Carolina, from “regional backwater” to globally ascendant city provides stark contrasts of then and now. Once a regional manufacturing and textile center, Charlotte stands today as one of the nation’s premier banking and financial cores with interests reaching broadly into global markets. Once defined by its biracial and bicultural character, Charlotte is now an emerging immigrant gateway drawing newcomers from Latin America and across the globe. Once derided for its sleepy, nine-to-five “uptown,” Charlotte’s center city has been wholly transformed by residential gentrification, corporate headquarters construction, and amenity-based redevelopment. And yet, despite its rapid transformation, Charlotte remains distinctively southern—globalizing, not yet global.

This book brings together an interdisciplinary team of leading scholars and local experts to examine Charlotte from multiple angles. Their topics include the banking industry, gentrification, boosterism, architecture, city planning, transit, public schools, NASCAR, and the African American and Latino communities. United in the conviction that the experience of this Sunbelt city—center of the nation’s fifth-largest metropolitan area—offers new insight into today’s most pressing urban and suburban issues, the contributors to Charlotte, NC: The Global Evolution of a New South City ask what happens when the external forces of globalization combine with a city’s internal dynamics to reshape the local structures, landscapes, and identities of a southern place.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780820343082
Publisher:	University of Georgia Press
Publication date:	06/01/2012
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.70(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

WILLIAM GRAVES is an associate professor of geography at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte.

HEATHER A. SMITH is an associate professor of geography at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte.

DEREK H. ALDERMAN is professor of cultural and historical geography at the University of Tennessee. He is the coauthor of The Political Life of Urban Streetscapes: Naming, Politics, and Place and Civil Rights Memorials and the Geography of Memory.

DAVID GOLDFIELD is the Robert Lee Bailey Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, the editor of the Journal of Urban History, and a distinguished lecturer for the Organization of American Historians. His many books include Still Fighting the Civil War.

WILLIAM GRAVES is an associate professor of geography at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte.

HEATHER A. SMITH is an associate professor of geography at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte.

William Graves (Editor)
WILLIAM GRAVES is an associate professor of geography at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte.

Heather A. Smith (Editor)
HEATHER A. SMITH is an associate professor of geography at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte.

Table of Contents

Contents
Acknowledgments
Maps
Introduction: From Mill Town to Financial Capital; Charlotte's Global Evolution
Heather A. Smith and William Graves
A Place to Come To
David Goldfield
Searching for Respect: From "New South" to "World Class" at the Crossroads of the Carolinas
Matthew D. Lassiter
Red Dust and Dynamometers: Charlotte as Memory and Knowledge Community in NASCAR
Ronald L. Mitchelson and Derek H. Alderman
Blending Southern Culture and International Finance: The Construction of a Global Money Center
William Graves and Jonathon Kozar
Beyond Local Markets: The Export Performance and Challenges of Charlotte Manufacturers
Ronald V. Kalafsky
A Place for Old Mills in a New Economy: Textile Mill Reuse in Charlotte
Tyrel G. Moore and Gerald L. Ingalls
Banking on the Neighborhood: Corporate Citizenship and Revitalization in Uptown Charlotte
Heather A. Smith and Emily Thomas Livingstone
Developing a Typology of African American Neighborhoods in the American South: The Case of Charlotte
Gerald L. Ingalls and Isaac Heard Jr.
Development and the Politics of School Desegregation and Resegregation
Stephen Samuel Smith
Centers and Edges: The Confusion of Urban and Suburban Paradigms in Charlotte-Mecklenburg's Development Patterns
David Walters
Salad-bowl Suburbs: A History of Charlotte's East Side and South Boulevard Immigrant Corridors
Tom Hanchett
Mi Reina: Latino Landscapes in the Queen City (Charlotte, N.C.)
José L. S. Gámez
Epilogue: Charlotte at the Globalizing Crossroads
Owen J. Furuseth
Contributors
Index

Editorial Reviews

Taken as a whole, this edited volume is an invaluable guide to understanding Charlotte, and more generally the growth and transformation experienced by cities in the Sunbelt.

Choice

How are global influences and local conditions interacting to shape southern history in the twenty-first century? This engaging collection offers many original and unexpected assessments and illustrations of the newest ‘New South.’ Contributing scholars use a range of approaches to uncover fresh perspectives on demographic, economic, and cultural change, as well as subsequent urban development. Read this timely account of Charlotte’s current transition and you will come to understand much about the broader arc of southern history in the making.

President, Levine Museum of the New South - Emily Zimmern

Recommended for all urban geographers, economists, and historians interested in the modern South. It would also be useful reading for southern politicians still struggling to make up their minds about the meaning and cultural cost of embracing modernity.

Journal of American History

It is time we had a major book about Charlotte’s rise to regional, national, and global prominence. This unique and valuable work satisfies that need admirably. Well written and nicely illustrated, it will be embraced by urbanists and by those in Charlotte who have yearned for a timely, comprehensive overview of their city.

coeditor of Cities of the World: World Regional Urban Development - Stanley D. Brunn

"Taken as a whole, this edited volume is an invaluable guide to understanding Charlotte, and more generally the growth and transformation experienced by cities in the Sunbelt."—Choice

"Recommended for all urban geographers, economists, and historians interested in the modern South. It would also be useful reading for southern politicians still struggling to make up their minds about the meaning and cultural cost of embracing modernity."—Journal of American History

“How are global influences and local conditions interacting to shape southern history in the twenty-first century? This engaging collection offers many original and unexpected assessments and illustrations of the newest ‘New South.’ Contributing scholars use a range of approaches to uncover fresh perspectives on demographic, economic, and cultural change, as well as subsequent urban development. Read this timely account of Charlotte’s current transition and you will come to understand much about the broader arc of southern history in the making.”—Emily Zimmern, President, Levine Museum of the New South

“It is time we had a major book about Charlotte’s rise to regional, national, and global prominence. This unique and valuable work satisfies that need admirably. Well written and nicely illustrated, it will be embraced by urbanists and by those in Charlotte who have yearned for a timely, comprehensive overview of their city.”—Stanley D. Brunn, coeditor of Cities of the World: World Regional Urban Development

From the Publisher

It is time we had a major book about Charlotte’s rise to regional, national, and global prominence. This unique and valuable work satisfies that need admirably. Well written and nicely illustrated, it will be embraced by urbanists and by those in Charlotte who have yearned for a timely, comprehensive overview of their city.

coeditor of Cities of the World: World Regional Urban Development - Stanley D. Brunn