West Charlotte
The crescent. Wesley Heights and Wilmore, a mile from uptown and the sharp end of Charlotte's displacement argument, and Steele Creek, where the airport and the Catawba fill the southwest quarter.
Photograph: Tremont Music Hall, Charlotte, NC · Johnhyde22 · CC BY 4.0 · source
5 neighborhoods on the crescent side. Wesley Heights sits a mile west of uptown on the Gold Line, a historically Black neighborhood next to the Biddleville and Seversville blocks around Johnson C. Smith University. Wilmore is mill housing on the far side of South End, and the last address inside the inner belt that was cheap: until roughly 2015. Steele Creek is something else entirely: the whole southwest quarter of the city, holding the airport, the Catawba River, and farmland turning into subdivisions and distribution warehouses at the same time.
West Charlotte is where the city's history of displacement is least abstract. Brooklyn, the Black business district in Second Ward, was demolished entirely by urban renewal in the 1960s and its residents moved west; the neighborhoods they moved into are the ones now appreciating fastest in percentage terms. If you are buying here, the honest framing is that you are participating in that, and the local land trusts and the City's House Charlotte program exist because of it. Practically: check the flood map, because Irwin and Stewart Creeks flood and the west side has more property in the 100-year floodplain than any other part of the city; and in Steele Creek, check the airport noise contours and the industrial zoning next door before you fall in love with the lot.
5 communities, guide by guide
Ayrsley
A built-from-nothing town center off I-485 in south-west Charlotte, the closest thing the west side has to a walkable core and the front door to the River District when it is built.
- 2001
- The year the land was first rezoned to mixed use, on petitions decided in January and December. Everything standing here was built after that
- 2,477
- Residents of Neighborhood Profile Area 92, the published area covering Ayrsley, at the 2020 census
Biddleville
Charlotte's oldest Black neighborhood, founded around Johnson C. Smith in 1867, and the piece of the Historic West End where the Gold Line arriving has moved the price most.
- 1871
- The year the village was laid out beside a college founded in 1867, making it the oldest surviving Black neighborhood in Charlotte
- 2,537
- Residents of Neighborhood Profile Area 382, the published area covering Biddleville, at the 2020 census
Steele Creek
The southwest quarter: the airport, the Catawba River, and a hundred years of farmland turning into subdivisions and warehouses at the same time.
- 78.57¢
- Combined city and county rate per $100 of assessed value, fiscal year 2027
- 5,038
- Residents of the Quality of Life areas covering this part of Steele Creek, 2020 census
Wesley Heights
A historic west-end neighborhood a mile from uptown, on the Gold Line, and the sharpest illustration of what Charlotte's displacement argument is about.
- 1910s
- When the neighborhood was laid out, on the streetcar line west of the city
- 1867
- Johnson C. Smith University is founded nearby. One of the country's historically Black universities, and the anchor of the Historic West End
Wilmore
Mill houses between South End and the Gold Line. The last cheap address inside the inner belt, and no longer cheap.
- 1900s
- When the neighborhood was built, as housing for the mills and plants along the rail corridor
- 2,278
- Residents of the Quality of Life area covering Wilmore, 2020 census
Photographs: South End by James Willamor, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons · Belmont by James Willamor, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons · The US National Whitewater Center by Doug Letterman, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons · Summit Avenue in Wesley Heights by Nyttend, Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.
