24 Hours in Greenville

Greenville, South Carolina, snuck onto the itinerary of my extended weekend trip to Charleston and Savannah because of all the internet superlatives that have lately been attached to it. Now that I've reached the ripe old age of 40, I'm starting to idly consider where I might want to drift off to after I retire, and the next 20 years will certainly afford me plenty of time to wander the U.S. to see what appeals to me most. As long as I was flying into Columbia, it seemed silly not to drive a little bit out of my way to take a look at the city recently landing on so many "top places to live" lists.

Greenville, a small but rapidly growing city in the northwest of the state, is only an hour or two from several larger cities, such as Charlotte, Asheville, Columbia, and Atlanta. With local employers like Michelin, GE, and Lockheed Martin to replace the textile manufacturing that anchored the town in the last century or so, the economy is supposed to be healthy, and the presence of local theater, ballet, and art options as well as multi-use trails (and that hipster indicator of a strong economy, craft breweries) round out the city's claims to livability.

I was only there for one day. However, it was an awkward first date. I did not leave feeling that I particularly wanted a second one. It's nice, but it's not great. The city struck me as if it were the offspring of Asheville and Charlotte—in both good and bad ways, inheriting characteristics from both parents, but reaching the distinctive appeal of neither.

The good stuff

Greenville has put a lot of money and thought into making their main street and the park in the middle of town attractive. And Falls Park on the Reedy is everything it's cracked up to be. I've never seen anything like this small river and waterfall that run right through the middle of town. Looking at them, you feel you've stepped inside a postcard. The falls can be viewed from right up close, or from myriad walkways and bridges set at various heights. The day I visited, the temperature was in the mid-90s, and I was sorely tempted to dive right in. Kids were climbing on the rocks, parents were sitting in the shade, and ducks were parading by right and left.

The gorgeous Falls Park on the Reedy in the center of downtown.

Wandering further down the path by the falls, you come to a combination of newer hotels and older structures repurposed for local events, like the Wyche Pavilion. I'm a big fan of adaptive reuse, so I was pleased to see that Greenville was using its older historic structures and not just tearing them down. In other parts of town, old mills are being turned into living spaces and breweries. 

Wyche Pavilion, once part of an old carriage factory.

I walked the entirety of Main Street itself, which has a couple of fun shops like the Mast General Store (endless bins of nostalgic candy brands!) and a smattering of restaurants. But I was generally underwhelmed by the options on a main drag that's billed as the center of the community.

Also, I was there during the Artisphere festival, meaning that everyone in town seemed to be walking the streets looking at artist booths and stopping into tents of wine or food tastings. The quality and variety of the art on display was very impressive, as good as anything I've seen at a big city art fair.

Swamp Rabbit Cafe and Grocery was my favorite local business. It is set near the Swamp Rabbit Trail, a paved path that runs for many miles through Greenville and to points north and south. I saw many runners, cyclists, and young parents with strollers making use of the path. I went to the cafe for lunch my first day and for breakfast my second, and everything I got there was fresh and excellent, from coffee to salad to baked goods. There is also a bike rental facility a few steps away.

The not-so-good stuff

One of the side effects of this art festival was that many downtown streets were blocked off to traffic, even in the evening. Since this area is where nearly all the restaurants are located, this presented a problem when looking for dinner. In my rental car, I circled endlessly as my GPS tried unsuccessfully to direct me to parking areas.

Sculptures at the Artisphere arts market.

The streets in Greenville are laid out somewhat strangely, so it's difficult to get around whenever you need an alternate route. To get to the western side of Greenville from the east, I had to go pretty far out to find a larger loop highway that would get me from Point A to Point B without crossing downtown's barricaded streets.

Another issue is the crowdedness of the local haunts. I couldn't tell how much of this was an influx of visiting artists versus the average Friday night crowd, but the impression I got was that there are so few good places that everyone goes to the same three, and they're swamped.

After giving up on downtown dining, I attempted to go to the White Duck Taco Shop casual dining establishment next to a brewery in a repurposed warehouse area, but the restaurant was so packed that it would have taken me at least half an hour just to reach the register to make a carry-out order, much less to find a table (believe me, I asked if I could jump the line, and was told that carry-out orders had to be called in ahead of time). I wasn't going to go drink beer without any food, being a lightweight, so I just headed back out.

Similarly, the Swamp Rabbit Cafe had extremely long lines both times I visited. My impression was that if there were more than one organic cafe or hipster taco joint/brewery in town, it would spread out the love a little. Greenville needs more establishments to meet its growing customer demand.

Last but not least, I was a little shocked by the clear delineation between the up-and-coming areas, full of condos and young white people, and the places where—only a street or two away from the hipster craft brewery or fancy repurposed mill—there were neighborhoods of intense poverty and seemingly 90 percent residents of color. This is a problem in most cities. But I was surprised that in such a small city, touted as so livable and appealing to new residents, the rich/poor and black/white divide would be so striking. The city has seemingly put fewer resources into good, affordable housing and social equity than into the downtown tourist areas and bringing in new people. 

Isn't one of the main reasons to live in a smaller community the sense that it cares about its residents? Isn't that one of the things that's supposed to distinguish it from the big city? In my admittedly abbreviated tour of Greenville, I felt the town still had a ways to go in becoming its best self.