The interesting thing about Charlotte's transit is part of its reasoning to build it. Charlotte was and is interested in moving people from place to place, but it's also very interested in creating density and opening the gates to urban development. The Lynx Blue Line only recently made it north of Uptown all the way to UNC-Charlotte. Part of the impetus behind that expansion was being able to see what the train had done for Uptown and the South End, creating a solid corridor of dense, mixed-use (albeit architecturally dull) development all along the rail line.
Have other cities used transit to deliberately spark development, or have most cities been more concerned with relieving congestion?
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"To sustain the life of a large, modern city in this cloying, clinging heat is an amazing achievement. It is no wonder that the white men and women in Greenville walk with a slow, dragging pride, as if they had taken up a challenge and intended to defy it without end." -- Rebecca West for The New Yorker, 1947
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