Sister cities?

I'm fascinated by the contrasts and similarities between Savannah and Charleston, southern cities only two hours apart. Both are immensely walkable. People walk the battery in Charleston or sunbathe in Marion Park. Yet Savannah's broader footpaths are easier to walk abreast on and their 22 squares draw the neighbours in. We've noticed people meeting in the middle for a glass of wine of an evening, weddings taking place, the odd strolling guitar player, and then, on Saturday morning, of course there are the exercise classes...

These squares, whether they were designed by Oglethorpe in 1733 as rallying points for militia or not, really invite 'use'.

In many respects both cities support our contention that university towns are best. Charleston has the Medical University of South Carolina, College of Charleston (est.1770), Charleston School of Law and Virginia College of Charleston. In Savannah, SCAD, the Savannah College of Art and Design is the big juggernaut, owning a building on just about every street it seems, and certainly the old movie houses, which it operates as live theaters. We saw Audra McDonald at the SCAD Theater last Wednesday night and she was a revelation, not only for what she revealed of a repertoire I thought I knew well (songs from shows like Fiorello and Do-Re-Mi, for example), but for the way she could 'tell' a song. And then when we thought she couldn't be any more talented she sat down and accompanied herself on the piano in a song by Adam Guettel, Richard Rodgers' grandson...

But Charleston and Savannah's charms are longstanding. They were lovely towns 15 years ago, before we noticed any university presence. They both have interesting similarities - their share of Revolutionary history (patriots died over by what you can see over your left shoulder if you turn around), their respective chapters in the history of slavery, their own memorials to 'our Confederate dead', the presence of voodoo. I notice a little more Savannah's association with piracy. Well, Treasure Island's Captain Flint is supposed to have died in Savannah. Charleston has Porgy and Bess of course (how fantastic to have an iconic show associated with your town). But I notice here a slightly higher historical presence of the Creek Indians. Tomochichi's grave is in town. And Samuel Wesley spent two years here in the 1730s and credited Savannah as being the locale of one of two revelations which led to his creation of Methodism (the other revelation took place in Oxford).

But what I notice here also is the fullness of cultural life that exists in a city this size. It doesn't have a first-run cinema downtown (it's miles away in the malls), I really feel the lack of a nearby pool, and it doesn't have an opera company (though somebody is working on that). But it has that sense of 'something on every night if you want it' which I've noticed in similar sized towns before. Let's see: last Monday if we had wanted to we could have gone to hear Tim Drake of Clemson University talk about Death and Burial Customs in the 19th Century at the Kennedy Pharmacy. On Wednesday, Dr Martha Keber spoke at the Savannah History Museum about The burning of 'La Francaise' and 'La Vengeance' by a Savannah mob in Nov 1811 as part of 'The War of 1812 Lecture Series', and the next night Prof. Christopher Baker at First Baptist Church talked on The King James Bible: Four Centuries of Influence. There's no excuse to be bored.

You can also dig endlessly into the architectural history of both cities too. But it looks to me that Savannah's architectural periods extended later. There was a real extension of prosperity into the Victorian era (after the Civil War?). There is even a Victorian District. Forsythe Park sits in it.

My strongest impression of Charleston architecture I suppose is of wood. Savannah is to a far greater extent built of brick.