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Charlietown

We spent the first week of the year in Charleston, South Carolina.  It’s always nice for us to spend time there because we’ve got friends and family there and it’s where my wife and I met twenty years ago 1. Technically speaking we spent most of our trip out on Folly Beach with a little side time on Edisto, John’s Island, Sullivan’s Island, Mt. Pleasant, and downtown Charleston. I think I started calling it “Charlietown” about the same time I left perhaps as a way to make it seem more casual. I’ve had some conversations with folks recently about it so I’m jotting my opinion out for posterity.  

I lived in Charleston for about 18 years which is almost as long as I lived in Columbia, where I grew up. Given my memories before age 8 or so are pretty sparse, it seemed like much longer. I’m going on 16 years in the Piedmont which means I’ve almost equally spread myself between the three and at some point, I’d like to do my last umpteen up in the Blue Ridge to round it out. I’ve lived elsewhere around the country for brief stints but the vast majority has been in South Carolina. I’ve been visiting Charleston since I was very young. My father lived in Charleston as a kid and then again as an adult for another fifteen years. His brother graduated from Charleston High School and his other brother lived in Charleston for years. Here I am a couple weeks ago in the same spot at White Pointe Garden with a 45 year difference.

Charleston is too overcrowded now. That’s it… that’s my general summary when discussing it with other folks. They should have put up a “Sorry Folks, We’re Closed” sign twenty years ago. Perhaps I’m just being nostalgic, but I try to be objective about the population growth. I was still there when it started to cross the tipping point. A lot of lifelong Lowcountry folks like to cite Hurricane Hugo2 as the impetus and I moved in right afterward for college so I could have been part of the problem more than I’d like to admit especially given I was supporting one of the largest and most aggressive property owners in the city. I spent a year prior in Savannah which gave me a good perspective on the two somewhat similar cities. When I first moved in, Charleston was starting to experience a bit of a renaissance of sorts. Charleston Place Hotel3, which opened just a couple of years before Hugo had already started the process, and then Prince Charles visited twice in 1990. 

When King Charles III visited, he did so because of his interest in historic preservation and affordable housing efforts after the damage from Hurricane Hugo. He spoke to a group of executives explaining “that capitalism needed to become more humane, wielded in more sustainable and environmentally friendly ways”4.  The King and the mayor at the time, Joe Riley planted a new tree for one that had fallen in front of a house on Cannon Street.

I lived on Cannon Street for a couple of years and house-sat for a family on Orange Street5 close to Riley’s house where I’d always pass him in the street and speak. I just tried to count the number of places I lived downtown and got eight, but I also lived in the old village of Mt Pleasant for a couple of years, out on Folly Beach, and up the highway in McClellanville. My father also lived on the Isle of Palms and in Mount Pleasant for about fifteen years. One of the houses I rented downtown on Vanderhorst Street got sold to an out-of-town buyer, whom I ran into at a sailing event at the marina where he explained to me that it was a better investment than New York.  The last house we had downtown was a carriage house on Franklin Street. We used to talk a good bit to the third-generation owner who rented out the home and his struggles to pay the taxes and upkeep the house. Two years after we left, he sold it which I’m sure is a relatively all-too-common occurrence. 

We came into Charleston last week via the back roads down to Edisto, ironically to see a new house construction, and up through John’s Island, but we left out I-26 and that’s where the majority of the evidence is. Multi-tenant housing buildings line the upper peninsula and new developments stretch at least halfway to I-95. I read a couple of editorial pieces on the development just to get a barometer of whether or not I’m just being curmudgeonly on it. Even when I lived there, it just constantly got busier and busier. The beaches and downtown got to where you had to avoid the holidays and weekends. Some of the more colorful aspects of the culture, which I’d argue are oft the most celebrated, have been pushed into a slim minority losing its authenticity like something rebranded that’s just slightly off. like when Charleston single-row style houses are constructed inland in a neighborhood with Plantation in the name and full-sized palm trees hauled in. 

I first got my first whiff of this future in the late 90’s when Daniel Island and a bunch of new developments were started in Mount Pleasant. This was capped off by the new bridge in 2005 and all of the publicity on Charleston being a top travel destination.  As this happens to other regional cities like Asheville and Greenville, it makes me wonder exactly what is a decent recipe for growth. I’ve also lived in really small economically distressed towns as well and can see the need for balance. Perhaps I’ve just become accustomed to fewer people at a slower pace but it’s now happening around the area I live because South Carolina has people coming in. According to a 2023 report, South Carolina is the top state and Charleston is the highest-ranked city nationally for inbound migration. Although it makes me want to capitalize on it, now I’m just primarily interested in preserving my interests, which happen to revolve mostly around peace and quiet. 

When I think about places to live, one of the most important considerations is a sense of community. I think it’s an often overlooked aspect that has a major effect on quality of life. It revolves around having a well-rounded community of various types of people and services like healthcare, education, agriculture, industry, and business. It’s easy to fall privy to the false promises of places like The Villages in Florida or even Hilton Head Island in South Carolina but staying there any length of time will dissolve those facades. I’m sure there are bright folks from varying backgrounds in urban planning and architecture trying to wrangle these issues. I’ve always thought that Charleston could get rid of the cars on the peninsula. The billionaire-backed California Forever released its plans for a pre-planned walkable and affordable community that could eventually have half a million residents. Charleston doesn’t have the advantage of being pre-planned but that’s where it’s charm lies.  It’s easy to imagine yourself car-free in an urban environment and taking in the amenities and culture of a city but speak with anyone who’s lived there long enough and you’ll likely hear conflicting stories. Just this morning, The Post and Courier’s front page was dominated by articles about the pains of growth. There’s just something nice about running into people you know and I think I’d find it pretty hard to live in a city that’s primarily a tourist destination or a college. I used to work at an Inn in Charleston and I loved to remind the guests of the more sordid history because they tended to romanticize the past. Perhaps I’m just doing the same for what I knew of Charleston.

I’m just not sure about the future changes to the quality of life for South Carolinians and I’m equally as unsure about any long-term solutions for maintaining a nice balance. I suppose the market is trying to level out the growth with pricing but that hasn’t seemed to slow down the migration.  Joe Riley cited his studies of European cities in his efforts to revitalize Charleston, but some of the most beautiful places in Italy and France are now trying to incentivize the revitalization of old properties. And even now, one of the more prominent writers on Charleston’s architecture and historic preservation, Robert Behre is writing editorials about saving College Lodge8,9, a former motor inn converted into a dorm. I think King Charles III’s speech there years ago on sustainable development needs to be brought up at every single zoning request for some new developer. 

( 24/02/04) After I had written out the essay, I had some reservations about publishing it because of how critical I can be and the complexity of the issues. I had some follow-up conversations with my better half about the essay and how it relates to our small hometown and even down to the scale of our neighborhood. I just wanted to add that I think population growth and change can be healthy as long as there is some decent long term planning. Charleston has the challenges of both the population growth and sea level changes.

  1. Our 16th Anniversary – https://davidawindham.com/our-16th-anniversary/
  2. Hurricane Hugo – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Hugo 
  3. Charleston Place – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charleston_Place
  4. As King Charles III looks forward, take a look back at his 1990 visit to Charleston – The Post and Courier ( 2022 ) – https://www.postandcourier.com/news/as-king-charles-iii-looks-forward-take-a-look-back-at-his-1990-visit-to/article_35924d7e-3061-11ed-ba13-fb2f7cef8d78.html
  5. 8 Orange Street, Charleston, SC 29401 – Zillow – https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/8-Orange-St-Charleston-SC-29401/10904508_zpid/ 
  6. How Mayor Joe Riley Shaped Charleston – Architect ( 2015 ) – https://www.architectmagazine.com/design/how-mayor-joe-riley-shaped-charleston_o
  7. 2023 Allied US Moving Migration Report – https://www.allied.com/migration-map 
  8. Commentary: College Lodge offers a chance to preserve disappearing 20th-century history – The Post and Courier ( 2024 ) – https://www.postandcourier.com/opinion/commentary/charleston-sc-mid-20th-century-architecture-disappearing/article_c55783dc-ae93-11ee-93c9-d3b85310a59a.html 
  9. Editorial: Think College of Charleston’s College Lodge is ugly? That’s beside the point. – The Post and Courier ( 2024 ) – https://www.postandcourier.com/opinion/editorials/college-of-charleston-cant-demolish-college-lodge-yet/article_c65d7eaa-b472-11ee-ab6a-3320d54c224f.html