East Charlotte

The stretch between Independence and Monroe Road: Idlewild, Grier Heights edges, and some of the best-value housing inside the city limits.

East Charlotte is the broad district along Central Avenue, Eastway Drive, The Plaza and Independence Boulevard from Plaza Midwood out to Interstate 485. It was built in the 1960s through the 1990s with ranch neighborhoods, apartment complexes and strip centers, and those strip centers now hold the metro’s immigrant economy.

Where it is

• Central Avenue from Eastway to Albemarle, the international food corridor
• Eastway Drive and The Plaza
• Independence Boulevard
• The old Eastland Mall site on Central, cleared in 2013 and becoming a mixed-use district with Charlotte FC’s training facility
• Plaza Midwood to the west, Hickory Grove to the northeast

If you’re moving here

Charlotte’s newcomers from Mexico, Central America, Vietnam, Nepal, Bhutan, the Congo and thirty other places settled here, and the result is the best and cheapest eating in the city. Housing is ranches, split-levels and apartments at prices that make it the most affordable part of the inner city. The Eastway and Shamrock Drive neighborhoods are changing from the Plaza Midwood side. Uptown is fifteen minutes down Central. It suits a first-time buyer, a renter on a budget, and anyone who’d rather live near the food than near the bars.

If you’re visiting

• Eat tacos on Central Avenue with the taco guide
• Shop the biggest international grocery in the Carolinas, in the international corridors guide
• See the Eastland Mall site and read its story in the Lost Charlotte guide
• Drive Central at dinner time; the parking lots tell you where to eat