W.J. Cash, 1941: “Probably it would mean nothing if I said that the skyscrapers which were going up were going up in towns which, characteristically, had no call for them … for it would merely be said that the Middle West was doing something of the same silly sort. But if I told you that they were often going up in towns (like Tar Heel Charlotte and Winston and Greensboro, or South Carolina's Columbia and Greenville and Spartanburg) which had little more use for them than a hog has for a morning coat…”
Robert A.M. Stern, 1986: “[Uptown Charlotte has] the ugliest collection of third-rate buildings in America. Charlotte has defined a type unto itself — a town that has grown very fast in a very mediocre way. There’s no place like Charlotte.”
(I should confess that I'm immensely fond of the exterior of the Hearst Tower in Charlotte, though I've never been inside. Actually, now that I think of it, none of the interesting buildings were around in 1986. Hopefully our city center is a little better now.)
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