Wilbur C. Rich - The Transformative City: Charlottes Takeoffs and Landings

THE TRANSFORMATIVE CITY

Charlottes Takeoffs and Landings

WILBUR C. RICH

2020 by the University of Georgia Press

Athens, Georgia 30602

www.ugapress.org

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Rich, Wilbur C., author.

Title: The transformative city : Charlottes takeoffs and landings / Wilbur C. Rich.

Description: Athens : The University of Georgia Press, [2020] |

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019044401 | ISBN 9780820356754 (hardback) |

ISBN 9780820356761 (paperback) | ISBN 9780820356747 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH : Charlotte-Douglas International AirportHistory. | Economic developmentNorth CarolinaCharlotteHistory. | City planningNorth CarolinaCharlotteHistory. | Charlotte (N.C.)

History. | Charlotte (N.C.)Economic conditions.

Classification: LCC F 264. C 4 R 53 2020 | DDC 975.6/76dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019044401

To all the young people who call me Gramps

Kailani, Nikolai, and Mikhial Reynolds

Miah, Symphony, Liliana, and Benjamin McDonnell

THIS BOOK REFLECTS MY FASCINATION with urban economic development, city airports, and airlines. When I was growing up in Montgomery, Alabama, the local airport was named Dannelly Field. The army used it as a training field during World War II, and the city took it over in 1946. Montgomery has had a storied airport history with Maxwell and Gunter Fields. Today Dannelly Field is called Montgomery Regional Airport. To fly anyplace, one usually has to first fly to Atlanta Hartsfield Airport, the regional hub. Hartsfield, now Hartsfield Jackson International Airport, connects the southeastern United States to the world. The airport also helped make Atlanta one of the nations largest and leading cities. This book examines how the city of Charlotte also used its airport to grow and develop.

In researching this book, I discovered several early historical parallels between Charlotte and Montgomery. Cotton proved critical to both cities; Alabama grew it, and North Carolina turned it into textiles. Montgomery and Charlotte also shared a racial tradition. Yet one grew while the other stagnated and lost population. Montgomery features fewer tall downtown buildings than Charlotte, and it has no corporate headquarters or professional sport franchises.

Why did Charlotte grow faster than Montgomery? Why did the banking industry select Charlotte? Who led the city, when, and how? Was its leadership just a matter of politics? Just as Charlotte mayor Benjamin Douglas (19341941) led the fight for Charlotte Municipal Airport, Montgomery mayor William A. Gunter (19191940) advocated for aviation before Douglas and stood behind the creation of Montgomery Municipal Airport (1929). After the war, the two cities diverged, and Gunters successors did not grow the airport.

It can be argued that a larger airport and more dynamic leadership could have changed Montgomerys history. Enticing airlines, at least regional ones, to the city could have made Alabamas capital an airline hub. With a more diverse economy and a supportive pro-growth coalition, Montgomery could have grown into a larger city with a better-developed economy. Montgomery also lacked the likes of Daniel A. Thompkins, Bonnie Cone (president of Charlotte College, now the University of North Carolina at Charlotte), Ben Douglas, Harry Golden, Harvey Gantt, Edward Crutchfield, Hugh McColl, and John and Tom Belk. None of these leaders were born in Charlotte, but they were all key to its development. However, I only mention Montgomery to explain my personal interest in the citys economic development. This book is not a comparative analysis of Charlotte and Montgomery.

This book offers a case study of the rise of Charlottes pro-growth coalition and its promotion of the Charlotte-owned airport, a critical part of the citys infrastructure. The building of Charlotte during the twentieth century underwent several generational changes in leadership. The point I am making in this book is that a pro-growth coalition matters in terms of the citys ambience: its race relations, business decisions, and uses of state and federal government grants-in-aid. Sunbelt cities like Atlanta, Charlotte, and Miami, with their international airports, have a transportation advantage that overwhelms global competition from other southern cities. Why? The short answer to this question seems intuitive, but the long answer lies at the intersection of built infrastructure policies, civic boosterism, and the changing nature of American cities. Simply put, Charlotte leaders invested in the future and took advantage of its opportunities.

In 2015, Charlotte was the second leading national center for banking. The citys pro-growth coalition supported building and expanding its airport, and leaders recognized that the city had to play on a universal stage. Hosting the 2012 Democratic National Convention gave Charlotte worldwide name recognition and proclaimed its aspirations to be a global city. Reporters from around the world came to the city to hear Pres. Barack Obama speak. The convention also injected $91 million in new spending into the local economy, for a total economic impact of nearly $164 million. Charlottes two major professional sports franchises, the Carolina Panthers and Charlotte Hornets, brought the city additional national visibility. With help from real estate developer Johnny Harris, the city won even more national notice from hosting the 1994 NCAA Final Four Basketball Tournament. Harris also started the annual Wells Fargo Championship Golf Tournament at Quail Hollow Club. Sports talk radio, teams, and events build residents pride in their city.

This book discusses a variety of subjectsaircraft and airport development, city political history, Charlottes changing airport management and business community, the Uptown/airport linkage, and the vagaries of citizen participation. I am sure that some important actors in the airports history remain unidentified and their contributions overlooked. Some events overlapped each other while others happened parallel to each other. The point is that Charlotte did not isolate itself from national trends. It embraced social and economic change, and it grew as a transformative city.

Charlotte is becoming a global city because of its linkages with the new financial class that dominates the world economy. The city is increasingly one of bean counters (e.g., financial and credit analysts, accountants, auditors, and loan advisors) and members of an Internet-monitoring class (e.g., informational security analysts and computer network architects) working from their Uptown offices (downtown). Charlotte is also a Democratic Party oasis in a state dominated by the Republican Party. At the time of this writing the city had elected two African American mayors. Moreover, it elected a female mayor before cities like Detroit and New York City. Charlotte grew without being the home of the states flagship university (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) and without the presence of a major law or medical school. Native Charlotteans are proud that their city is the nations second-largest banking center and that the airport serves Metrolina, which includes two states.

Finally, this book grew out of an unanswered mystery. In light of the citys praiseworthy investments and energy directed to its airport, why would the state of North Carolina try to take over Charlotte Douglas International Airport? After all, the airport is one of the citys major engines of growth, and it had a sterling reputation for being well managed. Did a growing partisan base split the time-honored pro-growth coalition? Did the attempted takeover portend a fundamental change in the relationship between the state and the city? I tried to answer some of these questions in a paper presented at the Southeastern Conference of Public Administration (2014). It was clear that I needed to provide more historical information concerning the airport and the citys economic development. Accordingly, this work devotes two chapters to the airports history and Charlottes related political/economic development. The book also examines the role of the federal government in airport development, banking, and race relations reforms. This review of Charlotte politics, airport, and economics covers events through 2015. Though many aspects of the city and local banking decisions have changed in the last four years, the basic conclusions of the book remain the same.