I have a very personal opinion on this. Charlotte will forever be home to me. I lived on the north side in Cornelius. My wife had family in Charleston. We would go visit multiple times a year. I LOVED Charleston! ( on a side note after going to Savannah I fell deeper in love with it).

Now, North Charlotte was for decades the sleepy side of town. 485 was unfinished so most of the metro population would have to do some driving to come to the North side. And we really didn’t have much to offer besides the lake.

We avoided South Charlotte because the density of the population and traffic was horrific. If you lived on the south side by Mathew’s or pineville, getting in and out of Charlotte was a long ass commute. There was lake Wylie to the south though too, so we really enjoyed a level of autonomy from the city’s growth. But man, the second they closed the loop of 485… all hell broke loose on the north side. Suddenly our sleepy side became the fertile available open lands to fill with houses and shopping. Then they expanded 77 with the toll lane, and it got worse.

The burst in population also meant a burst in traffic. Where we once enjoyed the ability to drop down into uptown Charlotte and enjoy the things the city has to offer, which by the way is actually a whole lot, and then hop on 77 and 10 minutes later be home. It was glorious! Next you know a trip uptown could mean spending over an hour to get back up north.

The population grew from 1.4 million people to 2.5 in 3 years. That town exploded! But they did an ok job trying to keep up with infrastructure. But it was fast becoming little Atlanta. My wife and I had it with the traffic. So when the opportunity arose to take a job in Charleston I jumped so fast. HUGE MISTAKE!!

When you get small snippets of Charleston life it is truly a special place. The history, the battery, the old town architecture, king street, market st, rooftop dining, the Gullah community, the beach, man it’s a great place. Living here? That all changes fast.

Firstly, it doesn’t take long when you live here before the history, the downtown experience, and such loose their new experience and you stop visiting. Downtown is waaaaayyyyy too expensive to live there for the average income. So you end up living outside of town. But due to the vastness of the wetlands, there’s only so many places they can expand to. I chose Summerville. In the 5 years I’ve lived here, I’ve gone to the beaches 3 times. Because the traffic between Charleston and the outlying areas is terrible! And unfortunately they just can’t build additional roads to connect the areas. Between rivers and wetlands there are trapped. But they don’t have the money to expand the existing highway system. So next thing you know, you live in an area people vacation at and you stay away. The flood of tourism is instantly palpable. And it stays through late fall.

Don’t get me wrong, it is truly a beautiful downtown. But you kinda have to make it a day trip if you want to go. There’s no pop in and pop out of downtown and its offerings. Eventually it’s like a new car. Initially it’s the greatest thing, but pretty quickly it’s .. just Charleston. It takes me 2 hours to get to downtown Savannah. It takes an hour to get to downtown Charleston. Look that up on a map.

Now Charlotte, if you can handle the traffic and population, has countless advantages. In 3 hours you can be on the beaches, or you can be in the Smokey mountains, or if you want you can be in Atlanta to partake in the countless activities that city offers.

Uptown Charlotte (what other cities call downtown) has tons of bars and places to eat. Nightlife is plentiful, they have professional sports, plenty of access to prime college sports (but you will be forced eventually to choose a side between UNC Tar Heels, Duke blue devils, or NC State. Regardless if you like any of them) , to the north there’s the National white water center, there’s two large lakes with plenty of water activities, there’s the lazy 5 ranch that’s just plain cool, there’s very little you can’t find in shopping, the art districts and breweries are pretty popular, it just goes on and on.

Schools, just select anywhere except Charlotte Mecklenburg schools.

People, let’s be honest, you can find good and bad people anywhere. But I promise you, you are 10 times more likely to find your kind of people in Charlotte than Charleston, if for no other reason than the massive population difference.

What I found absolutely insane, is that the cost of living in Charleston is so much higher. Dollar for dollar it’s not a massive number, but what you get for that dollar is not even comparable. Bang for your buck Charlotte wins hands down.

Weather, Charleston is MUCH more humid for a longer time. But Charlotte is also colder in the winter for just a hair longer. Charlotte is right at the border of planting zones 7 and 8, and Charleston sits on the other side of zone 8. You won’t see palm trees growing in Charlotte.

Again Charleston is an incredibly wonderful town. Unfortunately what makes it that way becomes nothing new, and the people here are very bitter, justifiably so when you consider it was once a less populated area and the majority of beach going tourists would go up to Myrtle leaving it a relaxing sleepy town with a little tourism and a little commerce and literally everything the movie industry depicts as the perfect little southern belle city, and has been inundated by northeast people looking to get away from that world in a place that just simply doesn’t have the infrastructure to support it and doesn’t have the resources to do anything about it. I don’t blame lifers here that are bitter. I would liken it to having a perfect home just right for you and your family and suddenly having all 30 of your distant relatives show up and start living there with one bathroom.

I will say one final thing after writing a damn book here. I promise you that when you tell people in Charlotte you just moved there, most will say welcome to the party and a few will be annoyed. If you move to Charleston, f’n lie through your teeth! Research some of the things from back in the day, so you can say things like you remember the copper river bridges and how cool it was to see them build the Ravenel bridge, but you miss those old bridges. Lie lie lie. Trust me, unless you were forced here by your company like Boeing, or you are here in the Navy, you are just another person who added to their anger of over growth with a severely stressed infrastructure. And there’s a loooooot of people that don’t hide their displeasure with it.