Since Spartanburg comes up regularly on this forum—I’m currently posting from the city, and Piffy has a mysterious background here—I thought I’d start a thread about it. Granted, it’s not part of WNC, and therefore outside of the Xpress’ usual coverage range, but only just.

I’ll start with a claim I can’t really back up: Spartanburg is kinda similar to Asheville, circa 1990. There are pockets of active, thoughtful, progressive people in a sea of conservative, libertarian, Christian-right dominance. As people move here for the cheap cost of living and the nascent creative community, the downtown seems to be slowly turning more progressive, although the county is still decidedly conservative. Spartanburg has a small, but active, chapter of Drinking Liberally.

Downtown in particular is coming along, and although it lacks a decent late night cafe, it does have the Hub City Farmers’ Market (humble, by Asheville standards), the Hub-Bub (a showroom/gallery with four artists in residence from around the region), several not-bad restaurants, a sweet little historic district (Hampton Heights), three great pizza places (Venus Pie, Sonny’s Brick Oven Pizza, Mellow Mushroom) and a soon-to-open brewery/tasting room for regional microbrew RJ Rockers (which I rather like).

There are also six colleges in the area: Wofford, Converse, USC-Upstate, Spartanburg Methodist, Spartanburg Community College and Sherman Chiropractic College. There’s also a new multi-million dollar arts center, The Chapman Center, and a soon-to-be constructed downtown Business School (part of USC-Upstate). The colleges are the major source of theater and dance performances in the city.

Regular public events include: Jazz on the Square (monthly, I think), Art Walk Spartanburg (monthly), Music on Main (weekly live music, like Downtown After 5) and the Hub City Jam (monthly acoustic jam). Open mics are commonplace, as is live music at a variety of venues. There are small, but regular, poetry slams.

That’s the basic map of what I find interesting about the city. Any questions?

You forgot the World-Class Library that puts asheville’s to shame.

No fooling. That place is beyond awesome.

It is stupidly hot in the summer, though.

EDIT: the town, not the library. it has air-conditioning.

Also, if anyone is interested, Spartanburg’s answer to Bele Chere—the horribly named Spring Fling—takes place this weekend. It’s actually got a fairly good line-up of local and regional bands, and I’ve heard it’s fun. It’s all weekend, May 1 through 3, and there are three stages of music, vendor booths and all the normal downtown festival stuff.

http://www.cityofspartanburg.org/Community_Interest/Spartanburg_Events/springfling/index.htm

And while you are there, make sure you enter the:

SPRINGFLING 2009!
Cornhole Tournament
West Broad Street

Be a spectator or join in the fun with a new attraction at the Fling - Cornholing!
Sign up for Open Doubles or the Topgun Division.
Toss a bag filled with corn feed into the hole.

http://www.cityofspartanburg.org/Community_Interest/Spartanburg_Events/springfling/SF_Cornhole.htm

That sounds like a hole different kind of spring fling.

so far, this thread is number 5 on page one of google search “Asheville Spartanburg Hampton Heights”.

http://www.google.ca/search?q=spartanburg+asheville+hampton+heights&btnG=Search&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=qTw&sa=2

as if anyone is going to search those words besides me or steve.

I expect a mass migration any day now. Spartanburg is the new Asheville, in the same way that Asheville was the new Athens.

Just kidding. Don’t move here.

Don’t move here.

You know you are a truly hip locale when you say this.

FYI: I can now definitively state that Spring Fling is like a lamer, smaller Bele Chere mixed with one of those horrible “carnivals” that come through town and set-up camp in the parking lot of the Asheville Mall. But not without promise.

Spurg would be cool if ...

Steve Shanafelt - 02 May 2009 01:54 PM

FYI: I can now definitively state that Spring Fling is like a lamer, smaller Bele Chere mixed with one of those horrible “carnivals” that come through town and set-up camp in the parking lot of the Asheville Mall. But not without promise.

but did you cornhole?

No. There’s still time though.

Incidentally, Spring Fling was pretty cool. It was a little less local than I’d have liked, but still not bad for a street festival in South Carolina. It was probably exactly like Bele Chere was in the mid-1980s.

I almost stopped in Spartanburg on the way back from the beach today.  Almost.