To see a band that started in 1984 is to deal with a set of, shall we say, difficult questions. Am I engaged in a rather fruitless attempt to relive my youth? Has the band in question recorded a good album since I reached the legal drinking age? Will I be out of place because […]
Posted inChapel Hill
Ruining Chapel Hill
To hear a lot of the folks on Nextdoor tell it, the city council is trying to ruin Chapel Hill. Well, I’m here to tell you, Chapel Hill has already been ruined. In my lifetime, I’ve watched it get ruined about a dozen times or so and a lot of the people who are complaining about it getting ruined, are the same people who ruined it before.
Posted in828 MLK, Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill Town Council
Chapel Hill’s Coal Ash Albatross: Where We Are Now on 828 MLK
Last night’s Town Council meeting (March 8, 2023) once again touched on the coal ash buried on the police station site at 828 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. And much of this discussion turned into political theater. Here’s what you missed if you didn’t power through the four-hour meeting. Background We’ve covered this issue extensively when […]
Posted inUNC, Chapel Hill, Housing
We Don’t Have to Fear Our Student Neighbors
Chapel Hill and Carrboro could take a page from Davis, California’s playbook and bring college students into community and conversation with longterm resident neighbors at an annual “neighbors’ night out” event. I was struck by a recent NextDoor post about the specter of college student neighbors. These fearsome figures are often invoked in discussions of […]
Posted inChapel Hill, From the archives
A push to build In-Cho-Co in Chapel Hill: ‘Is all of this Town’s vaunted liberalism phony?’
Shumaker’s editorial ends by acknowledging the desire by some in the community to prioritize “residential exclusiveness” and “the purity of zoning,” but suggested that some things were more important, including the Inter-Church Council’s housing project.
Posted inChapel Hill, Downtown, Economic development
♫ I only want to see you eating in the Purple Bowl ♫
♫ Purple Bowl, Purple Bowl ♫ When we last visited the Purple Bowl predicament, the beloved acai restaurant on Franklin Street was spearheading an email campaign to Chapel Hill Town Council to save themselves from a potential redevelopment. Here are some updates: We still believe this is a problem that Chapel Hill needs to solve […]