Frank M. Anderson's Writing

Tag: Greenville development

  • How Grief, Greenville, and a Search for Meaning Slowly Turned Into a Civic Philosophy Project

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    My brother died in 2023. Around the same time, I was already dealing with cancer, mental health struggles, questions about survival, and the growing realization that the life I thought I understood no longer entirely made sense to me. So I started writing. At first, that writing became The Cancer Diet, a memoir about illness,…

  • Seen / Unseen Greenville: Woodruff Road and Greenville’s Growing System Problem

    Seen / Unseen Greenville: Woodruff Road and Greenville’s Growing System Problem

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    Future City Greenville is the systems and planning side of Seen / Unseen Greenville. Instead of focusing mainly on history, it explores where Greenville is headed and how growth, infrastructure, development, traffic, housing, and city-county coordination shape daily life. At its core, it asks a simple question: What kind of regional system are we actually…

  • Seen / Unseen Greenville: The Map Beneath the Map

    Seen / Unseen Greenville: The Map Beneath the Map

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    Welcome to The Map Beneath the Map- a historical branch of Seen / Unseen Greenville exploring the older layers underneath modern Greenville When most people think about Greenville, they think about the version they can immediately see. Falls Park. Main Street. The bridge. The restaurants. The polished downtown that shows up in tourism campaigns and…

  • Seen / Unseen Greenville: Reading the Budget Like a Map

    Seen / Unseen Greenville: Reading the Budget Like a Map

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    How a city reveals itself through money, priorities, and infrastructure. I’ll admit something upfront: I did not sit down and fully read Greenville’s entire proposed FY2027 budget. What actually caught my attention was a Facebook post from the City of Greenville summarizing some of the major priorities: transportation improvements, trails and greenways, affordable housing initiatives,…

  • Seen / Unseen Greenville- Pleasant Roast: A Case Study

    Seen / Unseen Greenville- Pleasant Roast: A Case Study

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    What happens when a city says no—and what replaces it? I still drive past that lot sometimes. Most people probably don’t notice it. It’s just another piece of land sitting beside a road already carrying more traffic than it was designed for. Cars pass it every day without thinking. Another in-between space in a city…

  • Seen / Unseen Greenville: When Everything Started Pointing Downtown

    Seen / Unseen Greenville: When Everything Started Pointing Downtown

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    This weekend, downtown Greenville is overflowing for Artisphere. And honestly, that is a good thing. Twenty or thirty years ago, the idea that Greenville would host a nationally respected arts festival drawing huge crowds into downtown would have sounded almost absurd to a lot of locals. The city built something real here. People genuinely want…

  • Seen / Unseen Greenville: How Greenville Got Its Name

    Seen / Unseen Greenville: How Greenville Got Its Name

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    The The Simpsons takes place in a fictional town called Springfield. The name was chosen for a simple reason: there are so many Springfields across the United States that it could feel like anywhere. In that sense, Greenville isn’t all that different. There are Greenvilles in multiple states—North Carolina, Mississippi, Texas, and beyond. The name…

  • Seen / Unseen Greenville: A Nice Greenville Isn’t the Same as a Kind One

    Seen / Unseen Greenville: A Nice Greenville Isn’t the Same as a Kind One

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    Greenville is a nice city. That’s not sarcasm. It’s not a setup. It’s just true. It’s clean. It’s welcoming. It’s easy to enjoy. People are generally friendly. The parks are good. The downtown is polished. The trail system is something most cities would love to have. If someone comes to visit, it’s not hard to…

  • Seen / Unseen Greenville: Can We Avoid Woodruff Road (Part 2)?

    Seen / Unseen Greenville: Can We Avoid Woodruff Road (Part 2)?

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    Everyone who has seen Jaws 2 knows a few things: the shark is back and mad, and the same mayor is still in charge, doing the same damn things all over again. That’s the feeling you get if you look at what’s happening on Laurens Road—and what could be coming next. Because if we’re not…

  • Seen / Unseen Greenville: GVL2040 and the Gap Between Plan and Reality

    Seen / Unseen Greenville: GVL2040 and the Gap Between Plan and Reality

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    Most people in Greenville haven’t read GVL2040. That’s not really a knock on anyone. It’s a long-term planning document, not exactly light reading. But it is one of the most important things shaping what Greenville becomes over the next 15–20 years, whether people realize it or not. GVL2040 is the City of Greenville’s comprehensive plan…

  • Seen / Unseen Greenville: Unity Park, Social Justice, and the Tower to Nowhere

    Seen / Unseen Greenville: Unity Park, Social Justice, and the Tower to Nowhere

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    There is a lot to admire about Unity Park. It is beautiful, spacious, and full of life. It transformed long-overlooked land near the Reedy River into one of Greenville’s most impressive public spaces. Families gather there, kids play there, people walk and rest there, and for many residents it has become a genuine source of…

  • Seen / Unseen Greenville: What Do We Want These Buildings to Be?

    Seen / Unseen Greenville: What Do We Want These Buildings to Be?

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    Lately, as I drive around Greenville and through other parts of South Carolina, I keep returning to a question that became much more personal after my own attempt to open a coffee shop: What do we actually want these empty places to become? That question sounds simple until you try to build something yourself. From…

  • Four Greenvilles

    Four Greenvilles

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    When people talk about Greenville, they usually talk about it like it is one place with one shared experience. A single city moving in one direction with one story to tell. But that has never really been true. Greenville is several Greenvilles at once. Different versions of the same city, living beside each other, shaping…

  • Fear of a Post-Knox White Greenville

    Fear of a Post-Knox White Greenville

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    It is an odd thing to worry about a city after the departure of a leader who has been in office so long that many residents barely remember life before him. But that is where Greenville may now find itself. For nearly three decades, Knox White has been one of the defining faces of modern…

  • Greenville Is Too Small

    Greenville Is Too Small

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    Many of us work in hospitals, restaurants, warehouses, offices, schools, hotels, construction sites, retail stores, government buildings, and service industries. We help power the city of Greenville’s success, then return home to communities that may have less funding, less visibility, and less influence over the place they help sustain. That is why, even if it…

  • The Whitening of Greenville: Gentrification and Pushed-Out People

    The Whitening of Greenville: Gentrification and Pushed-Out People

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    Greenville’s Favorite Story About Itself Greenville loves the story it tells about itself. It is a story of redemption, polish, and smart civic leadership. A former mill town that once struggled with decline reinvented itself into one of the most celebrated small cities in America. Downtown was revived. Main Street became a destination. Falls Park…