South End

The old textile corridor along the rail line, now the busiest restaurant and brewery strip in the city. The Rail Trail and the LYNX Blue Line run its length, and the skyline changes every year.

South End runs along South Boulevard and the Blue Line from the edge of Uptown to Scaleybark. For a century it was mills and rail yards. The light rail opened in 2007 and it became the neighborhood where young Charlotte lives first: converted warehouses, new towers, and the Rail Trail down the middle.

Where it is

• Camden Road and the blocks around the East/West and Bland Street stations
• The Rail Trail beside the tracks, lined with murals and breweries
• Lower South End, south of Tremont, with the old industrial buildings
• Dilworth across South Boulevard; Wilmore to the west

If you’re moving here

Almost everyone rents in a building that went up after 2012. You give up a yard and pay extra for a parking space, and you get a taproom, a coffee shop and a train within two blocks. It’s the right first neighborhood for someone new to the city in their twenties or thirties, and the car-free guide says it’s one of the few places in the metro where you can skip the car entirely.

If you’re visiting

• Walk the Rail Trail from Carson Street to East/West Boulevard on a Sunday morning for the murals
• Do a brewery afternoon with the breweries guide
• Stay here for a weekend trip; you’re one stop from Uptown and surrounded by food
• Expect standing-room trains for two hours before any stadium game