A 'New South' City in Trouble Faces Reality -- and It's a Good Thing

Charlotte loves a celebration. And this one was for itself. Over the weekend, North Carolina's largest city threw a doozy, complete with music, dancing and celebrity appearances.

The Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts and Culture opened its doors to the public. The 44,000-square-foot museum replaces the former Afro-American Cultural Center with four times the space and a permanent home for its Hewitt collection of works from artists ranging from Henry Ossawa Tanner and Elizabeth Catlett to Charlotte native Romare Bearden. It was almost enough to make the city forget the troubles that have burst its boomtown balloon. But while others, particularly as expressed in a recent Washington Post profile, have been wondering if the city will ever recover its "New South" mojo, Charlotte is doing the one thing that few thought it would ever do -- face reality.

Oddly enough, the newfound sobriety could be what saves Charlotte from slipping into the recession-triggered malaise infecting other cities across the country. After such a swift and steady rise, the fall has been difficult. Despite occasional chiding for its well-manicured sobriety, Charlotte long enjoyed mostly glowing national, even international, notices. Sure, a production of "Angels in America" ran into problems some dozen years ago when a handful of locals objected to the show's nudity, but this brief glitch that put the city in a provincial spotlight also ensured it would be sold out. And, true to form, it was all resolved by opening night, which only added to the city's can-do reputation.

When you heard "Charlotte," you thought of the financial institutions that made it the second-largest banking center in the country (just after New York City, proud residents proclaimed). The pleasant climate and fertile job market drew refugees from fading Rust Belt cities. Positive notices greeted desegregation of its schools by busing in the 1970s. Although not without problems, the process looked tranquil when compared to Boston's nightmares. It gave the city another reason to feel as though it had the secret of how to do things right.

Harvey Gantt -- whose name is on the new arts center -- is responsible for some of the goodwill channeled Charlotte's way. He integrated South Carolina's Clemson University in 1963, was elected the city's mayor in 1983, lost two hard-fought and close Senate races to Jesse Helms, and -- while he's been a successful architect -- has remained involved in civic activities.

The city's sports franchises added their share of upbeat public relations, with the NFL's Carolina Panthers rising from their first season in 1995 to the 2004 Super Bowl, where they earned respect if not a win against the New England Patriots. As someone who was there covering the scene, I can tell you that not one person doubted the team would be back. The upbeat mood was in keeping with the city that New York Times writer and social critic Peter Applebome said "may edge out Dallas and Atlanta as home to the purest strain ever discovered of the Southern booster gene," in his 1996 book, "Dixie Rising: How the South is Shaping American Values, Politics, and Culture."

But this is 2009.

Unemployment here has hovered close to 12 percent, above the national average. Nor is it a good time to be a Charlotte banker, with the signature Bank of America the focus of anger for its federal bailout package, executive compensation and customer relations. Hugh McColl, the former Marine with a civic conscience who expanded Bank of America's reach and community involvement, is left to defend his successor, Ken Lewis, who is set to retire at the end of the year amid questions over the bank's acquisition of Merrill Lynch. (Lewis has already appeared before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.) As for the one-time Southeast powerhouse Wachovia, it sunk under the weight of its involvement in the mortgage market and was taken over by San Francisco-based Wells Fargo on Dec. 31.

After the courts declared the Charlotte-Mecklenburg system unitary a decade ago, virtually ending busing to achieve integration, schools once again began to divide by race and income; student assignment and redistricting arguments fuel school board campaigns. No one has found the answer to the stubborn achievement gap.

And rather than wish for a Super Bowl, fans of the Carolina Panthers -- with a 2-4 record after Sunday's embarrassing loss to the Buffalo Bills -- just want the season to be over.

From being a little too eager to please and a little too sensitive to criticism -- a city that acted as though it had never been to the party before -- Charlotte today has settled down to earth. It seldom displays the velvet-wrapped hostility toward the northeastern giants that send a steady stream of new residents southward.

These days, as even those on top are feeling the pain, Southern hospitality has seemed more genuine embrace than suffocating squeeze. Sometimes, admitting your flaws and trying to tackle them is the strong move, a sign of resilience, not weakness. Observers are admitting that some of those flaws have been there all along, covered up by insecure bravado.

This change in style is noticeable in a mayoral contest that next Tuesday will choose a new face after 14 years of the reliable and Republican Mayor Pat McCrory. In an interview and profile in this week's Creative Loafing Charlotte, I looked at the legacy of the only mayor that many city residents have ever known. "We set a vision of how to grow and develop for the future," he told me, through "transportation and land use and economic development." But, as he acknowledged, his affable demeanor and ribbon-cutting prowess gave the impression of cheerleader even as he tackled challenges.

Both men who would be his replacement give due praise while laying out a new path for a city that's changed.

Democrat Anthony Foxx, who could become Charlotte's second black mayor, is a child of a single mother, raised by grandparents on the city's west side. The city "missed some opportunities" when the economy was working better, he told me, to improve the quality of life for all its citizens. "There are only a few cosmetic differences between the walk I took 20 years ago to high school and what Beatties Ford Road looks like today," Foxx added, referring to a route that has not shared in all of Charlotte's good fortunes.

Mixed in with his promise to embrace small businesses and encourage cooperation with the capitals of Raleigh and Washington is talk about adjusting the way the city thinks of itself. Foxx, who has received the endorsement of The Charlotte Observer, said there's "a superficiality that's grown up around our city that I want to purge."

Republican John Lassiter, who intends to continue running his business if he wins the part-time mayor's job, touts Charlotte as a tourist destination, but also said he will have a singular focus on "problem areas and making them better." Lassiter -- a friend of McCrory, who supports him -- nevertheless said his style will be different. "I don't mind giving a speech. I'm OK with that, I've given thousands. But I'm much more of a negotiator. I bring my legal training. I bring my business training, and that means I'm very comfortable sitting around the table with a lot of data." Beyond the skyline, crowned by the Cesar Pelli Bank of America tower, he sees "way too many folks who sleep every night outside or in a car or double or triple up in a small apartment."

Shining a light on that problem is "On the Edge: Homeless and Working Among Us," an exhibition presented by Charlotte's Levine Museum of the New South and the Light Factory (a contemporary museum of photography and film) through the beginning of next year. The working poor make up about 60 percent of the population in Mecklenburg County homeless shelters; close to 3,000 children in the school system are registered as homeless.

In a step toward solving the problem of the chronically homeless, the Urban Ministry Center this month unveiled a $10 million project to aid 85 of the city's most troubled homeless people, giving them an apartment and the training and services to keep them off the streets. Already $7 million has been raised, including a gift of more than $1 million from the Wachovia-Wells Fargo Foundation.

Although the latest unemployment numbers are going in the right direction, no one thinks the problems are solved. Charlotte Mission Possible is a joint effort by local media to help residents understand the charitable needs of the community, and then find ways to help meet those needs.While everyone agrees the banking troubles have been a blow, they have given the city a chance to develop other financial service centers, as well as advances in the technology, health care and energy sectors. This month, Siemens Energy broke ground on a $50 million expansion next to its Charlotte manufacturing plant that the company said will eventually add more than 200 jobs.

The opening of the Gantt center in many ways symbolizes why many are hopeful, if not quite as ebullient as in years past. Down the street from the NASCAR Hall of Fame, set to open in May of next year, the arts center is part of a cultural campus that will also include the recently opened Knight Theater, the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art and a new home for the Mint Museum. The curious first-day crowd came, some on the Lynx light-rail system financed by a voter-approved sales tax and federal transit funds. (So far, there's just one line.) Many visitors were the children that center president David Taylor hopes will eventually stream in from schools to take classes from visiting artists.

With a nod to the past in a city that's been accused of only looking ahead, the Gantt Center is close to the site of the demolished Brooklyn section of Charlotte, an African-American neighborhood lost in the city's urban renewal. The design on the building's side mimics the Jacob's ladder stairway pattern of a historic school in that community. African-American architects -- figurative sons of Gantt -- designed the space. The Bank of America acquired the John and Vivian Hewitt Collection, the anchor of the permanent collection, for the Afro-American Cultural Center in 1998, confident there would one day be a space to exhibit it.

"Triumph on Tryon," a documentary created by local television news reporter Steven Crump, links the past to the present. In it, Hugh McColl says Gantt "played a major role in almost every good thing that's happened in this city." At the media opening, Gantt – "humbled, grateful, honored" – said the center will show "how our diversity of people and cultures makes this a caring city."

He could be the spokesman for the mood of the 18th-largest city in the U.S., one that's still growing. It hasn't abandoned its optimism; it's just tossed in a dose of reality. That may not be such a bad thing.