If you ever visit Charleston it's sure to stay in your mind as a near-perfect place. "If only more cities could be as charming and gracious," I thought the first time I visited. And when I recently returned, more than 15 years later, I felt the same way, yet even more so. Although I've visited many more cities now, Charleston is still one of my favorites.
Like such destinations as New Orleans, Key West, St. Augustine and San Francisco, it's a U.S. city I will always want to get to know better. Charleston reminds me that we have more than a bit of the elegance of European capitals like London and Amsterdam here.
When you stay within the historic center of the South Carolina city, you feel as if you are more in a neighborhood than an urban area. It's neither too big nor too little, rather "just right" as Goldilocks would say. Plus it's beautifully set on peninsula between the Ashley and Cooper rivers coming together at Charleston Harbor.
Walking down Charleston's streets with lush landscaping, many parks, and carefully restored historic homes, churches, government buildings and businesses, you can't help but feel at home. Especially when one of the locals gives you a neighborly smile. There's something substantial and reassuring about all the wrought-iron gates and fences.
It's no wonder Charleston has served as an inspiration for the development of new walkable communities across the country where residential neighborhoods are footsteps from town centers and schools. Seaside, Florida, which was designed based on Charleston and other small historic cities, kicked off the New Urbanism movement in the early 1980s. The planning style, also known as Traditional Neighborhood Development, was later famously used for Disney's Celebration. One of my favorite of such new communities is Rosemary Beach, Florida.
Now the return to traditional city planning vs. separating suburban residential developments from business districts has become commonplace. Historic downtowns and their surrounding residential areas have been revived, restored and are highly sought after these days. While I'm definitely a fan of the original versions with their old-style craftsmanship, evolution over time and quirky character, I too respect how much easier it is to live in a brand new home built in a historic style vs. a charming money pit.
But you can never fully reproduce historic ambience. Charleston's past as a player in the Revolutionary War, a bastion of the plantation-focused, slave-driven South, and a reinvented modern Southern city, can not be replicated as if a movie set. There is no Charleston but Charleston. The angels and ghosts that protect and haunt it are part of what you feel when you walk its streets. While you and I may not be able to afford to live in Charleston, we can't afford not to saunter down its streets and listen to its stories.
As for myself I grew up in Homewood, Alabama, one of thousands of original traditional neighborhoods where you can easily walk to school, the library, church and town. As I adore to walk and look and think without crowds around to distract me, it was the perfect upbringing for me. Since then I have sought out such communities to live in where ever my work has taken me.
When I travel it's always a great pleasure to take a stroll anytime I'm in a walkable city like Charleston. It not only gives me a better feel for the place, I find that my experiences while walking remain memorable. I'm less apt to remember what I've only seen while zipping by in a car, van or bus. Probably that's because walking engages all the senses. While I'm walking I am smelling the fresh cut grass or the blossoming jasmine, sweating in the humidity or relishing a gentle breeze.
Perhaps that's why so many of us long for traditional communities and cherish those that come across our path. By luring us to walk rather than jump into a car, they wake us up to life.
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