Charleston Magazine Features the East Side

January's issue of Charleston Magazine included a write-up on Charleston's East Side. If you've been following our postings you may already know that The Cosmopolitan Charlestonian resides here on the East Side of Peninsula Charleston. We are crunched between Columbus Street and the lower Wraggborough area. We are just blocks from the Visitor's Center. It's a friendly, urban environment full of energy. This is a diverse neighborhood that may appear an abstract, yet, should a very unique set of ideas continue to mix, may complete its march toward humble historic residential district meets modern passive-green gateway to the lower regions of Charleston in just a few short years.

We moved to the East Side just because we wanted to live downtown. And it was affordable for us. It was about as simple as that. It's possible we were drawn to the East Side because of our own personal advocacy for new urbanism. East Side Story articulates the draw and exemplifies our belief in this diamond-in-the-rough section of Downtown Charleston. With its strategic location, amount of available land and convenient access to public transit, there is a unique synergy in this area's footprint that will likely feed urbanism as development switches gears from a world of cheap oil to a world limited by the expense of oil.

Here mixed use is not civic design slang or a New Urbanaism buzzword, but an authentic, centuries-in-the-making reality. Homes, parks, schools, churches, storefronts, mills and mansions all remain part of the East Side's dense, diverse, and somewhat tattered urban fabric.

We expect one day soon to have a corner drug store, a deli, a few more restaurants and shops, and possibly a transit line exchange hub. Job creation is certainly a good thing as these dominoes slowly fall into place as the East Side reaches for its revival.

For now, we sit on our Charleston Single front porch, smelling the harbor's salty, pluff mudd-scented breeze watching the many passers-by sashaying up and down the street in their Southern Sunday best. The East Side has the sun shining bright upon it on this day, and we can appreciate where this neighborhood has been in the past. We can also laugh about the things that Charleston magazine could never tell you about the East Side. For creativity and entrepreneurship blossom in the fertile soils of transition.

Historically, the East Side was a suburb of Charleston proper. It was a niche location where the wealthy, working class and freed slaves enjoyed escape from “the city.” Many laws taken seriously inside the walled city proper were less stringently enforced on the East Side back then. On occasion residents fail to recognize that it’s 2008 and the East Side is no longer a refuge of sorts. One recent night as we walked home from dinner we caught a glimpse of entrepreneurial spirt mixed with old world East Side lawlessness.

It happened that a resident up the street near Nassau decided their Momma's cooking was good enough to sell right out of the kitchen. As we passed the house, surely zoned Residential, we noticed an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper tacked to the siding next to the screened door that said:

Momma's Cooking

1 chicken breast plate $5
2 chicken breast plate $10
vegetables $2
collards $4
green beans $3
Chicken Legs $3

The new business owners cleverly left the main door wide open, and the exterior screen door left slightly ajar, so people could walk right in. Wafting out from behind that screened door was the best damn fried chicken smell the two of us have ever sniffed - and we consider ourselves foodies! A few days later the sign was gone. We figured Momma hadn't thought about a business license or a kitchen rating. On top of that her restaurant probably wasn't paying taxes, so there was no way to continue to overlook her racket. Upon further reflection, it was probably The Piggly Wiggly that reported Momma. Her little scheme was probably affecting fried chicken deli sales.

The East Side is a great spot, though. We must be quite cautious to respect diversity, lest this jewel not come to shine as it was meant to. And let's not leave any of our creativity behind in the dust as we move toward inevitable change.

New Urbanism Now to Avoid New Hermitism

Always willing to try something new, last Thursday The Cosmopolitan Charlestonian decided to attend a meeting on new urbanism. We jumped on our bikes and zipped over to 39 Rue de Jean, downtown Charleston, to pile into a room full of architects and town planners to enjoy an enlightening hour with the former Mayor of Milwaukee and current President, John Norquist, of The Congress for New Urbanism.

Feeling a bit like those lonesome island-like neighborhoods we’ve written about here, we found the presentation timely. Since giving up our Jaguar, we have become frustratingly aware of the bad design of our urban landscape and its complete reliance on the automobile. We wanted answers (and some hope) quick! Although we live downtown, our personal quest to crush our dependency on oil has segregated us from normal society in the same way any one of those gated communities sits – stranded, alone, miles of asphalt between you and it. Our friends are still part of normal society. And they live and party in those communities, tethered to the main artery by long, long roads, parkways, avenues and highways. And they still drive cars. Oh, how we miss them.

We made a choice. We kicked our car to the curb like an X (pick up Divorce Your Car by Katie Alvord when you get a chance). By Saturday night, that choice along with 50 years of urban sprawl caused us to miss our dear friend, Eddie Bush’s impromptu birthday party…a result of our damned global warming/peak oil/reduction of mass consumerism choice. And, of course, the party was, like, fifteen miles away, in a neighborhood on the outskirts of town with a bus line running no where close. So we immediately phoned a cab company, only to be told that a one way trip would equate to a Grand Total of $35.00 (plus we would tip another $7). Had our community been Newly Urbanized in the same fashionable manner the urbanist, forward-thinkers presented, we’d have been able to attend the party and would have been transported there on a reproduction electric trolley car. Who couldn’t just love this idea?

We’ve gotten around with no car and no trouble in cities like Amsterdam, London, New York, Washington D.C. and L.A. In Europe, even small cities (roughly the size of Charleston) offer wonderful public transit. The public transportation was so thorough and user-friendly in Jönköping and Huskvarna, Sweden, we even saw dogs on the bus sitting with their masters! In Amsterdam there are multiple lanes on every street - one for cars, one for electric street cars, one for buses, one for bikes and one for pedestrians. And they have giant bike parking garages! If you are an idiot and find yourself in the wrong lane, it is your own fault and people shake their heads in disgust while mumbling cruel Dutch words under their breaths. The New Urbanists appear to simply desire a return to the sensible architectural studies thrown away in a rebellion against two World Wars. Thus, the birth of Urban Sprawl, otherwise known as U.S. In car world there is little to be debated over with respect to urban design. However, the meeting did provide some hope for future connectivity.

The New Urbanist focus was on many of the issues we’ve already pointed out on this blog. Pedestrian unfriendly, disconnected neighborhoods segregated further by restrictive zoning laws have sprawled into a suburban nightmare reminding us constantly of James Howard Kunstler’s Eyesore of the Month. In most cases, this setup leaves anyone outside of a car subjected to a nice walk in the gutter (or over someone’s landscaping as we’ve pointed out in the past). America’s reliance on cheap oil, which is now obviously dwindling, has fueled more than just our vehicles – it has fueled an entire architectural movement toward big box theory flanked by giant parking lots devoid of human life. It’s no wonder the general population “looks down” upon those of us trudging over the beaten down footpaths carved into areas where a sidewalk should have been planned. We’re walking in gutters looking like we cannot even afford so much as an old klunker to deliver us to point B.

On a more positive note, we can fix this. A focus on infill development with a keen eye on urban design can save America from endless urban sprawl. Developers interested in green building must give great thought to the placement of their future buildings with rooftop gardens. There is no point in building green if the residents of said building must pollute for miles and miles driving to their new green homes. You too can join the Congress for New Urbanism for a mere hundred dollars. Their next presentation here in the States is to be held in Austin, Texas.

As far as the party, we hope to figure out additional alternatives for the future. Eddie – Happy Birthday! We hope you had a wonderful time and our thoughts were certainly on your special evening. We’re still figuring out the carless lifestyle. Cheers!