Tag: urban planning
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SEEN / UNSEEN GREENVILLE: What Happens When Multiple Visions of a City Collide at the Same Intersection?
A while back, I became involved in a project called Pleasant Roast — a proposed drive-thru coffee concept planned for a busy Greenville corridor. On the surface, it seemed simple enough: take an underused property, create a practical local business, and build something people would actually use. But the deeper we got into the process,…
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Seen / Unseen Greenville: What South Carolinians Say They Actually Want
There’s a strange thing happening in South Carolina right now. On one side, the state is booming. Cranes everywhere. Subdivisions spreading into old fields and forests. Distribution centers. Data centers. Luxury apartments. “Top Places to Move.” “Fastest Growing.” “Business Friendly.” The official story is momentum. But underneath that polished story, there’s another South Carolina talking.…
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Seen / Unseen Greenville: The Weird Middle
Many Versions of Kind explores the moral and emotional side of Greenville’s growth and identity. This path asks harder questions about what it actually means for a city to be “good,” not just successful, polished, or profitable. It examines the difference between being nice and being kind, how systems affect belonging, who benefits from growth,…
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Seen / Unseen Greenville: Woodruff Road and Greenville’s Growing System Problem
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…
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Seen / Unseen Greenville: Reading the Budget Like a Map
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,…
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Seen / Unseen Greenville: A Timeline of the City Beneath the City
What came before—and what never fully left Greenville can feel like a new city. A growing city.A successful city.A city figuring itself out in real time. But that version of Greenville—the one most of us experience day to day—is only the latest layer. What makes Greenville interesting isn’t just what it is now. It’s how…
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Seen / Unseen Greenville- Pleasant Roast: A Case Study
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…
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Seen / Unseen Greenville: Can We Avoid Woodruff Road (Part 2)?
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…
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Seen / Unseen Greenville: GVL2040 and the Gap Between Plan and Reality
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…
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Seen / Unseen Greenville: What Do We Want These Buildings to Be?
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…
Frank M. Anderson's Writing 