I’m looking forward to being entertained this week by delegates, journalists, and other visitors complaining about the pretensions and shortcomings of Charlotte, N.C. I was born in Charlotte. I grew up in Mecklenburg County. And I’m here to tell you — you don’t know the half of it. There is no insult you could possibly conjure up that the natives haven’t already heard, or said themselves.

It’s not that I don’t have fond regard for my birthplace. My ancestors arrived in the area in 1752, before the town of Charlotte even existed. Charlotte-Mecklenburg has a fascinating history of economic ingenuity, religious turmoil, Revolutionary fervor, and political striving (Andrew Jackson and James K. Polk were born in its environs, for example). It’s the rare example of a city making it big despite not being a state capital or located on a major waterway. Charlotte started life in the 1760s as a town astride two major pioneer roads carrying settlers from the Pennsylvania and Maryland backcountry into the Carolinas and Georgia. Then gold was discovered nearby, ushering in America’s first gold rush during the first decades of the 19th century. Trade and finance powered Charlotte’s rise from tiny village (President George Washington called it “a trifling place”) to Sun Belt metropolis.

But Charlotte has also long had a bit of a chip on its shoulder. Even as it became the nation’s second-largest banking center, its elites resented little slights such as the “N.C.” at the end of every Charlotte dateline. And, envious of the charms of Charleston and Richmond and of the grandeur of Atlanta, city leaders put gobs of tax money into convention centers, sports teams, museums, and light rail to create a “world-class destination city.” The community’s newcomers and urban elites tended to like these ideas. Many natives and hard-pressed taxpayers didn’t. The latter moved over the line to fast-growing neighboring counties in North and South Carolina, which have become deep-red communities encircling an increasingly blue urban core. Charlotte-Mecklenburg was long an outpost of Republican political strength in a mostly Democratic state. But in recent elections, Charlotte has opted for a Democratic mayor, an overwhelmingly Democratic city council, and Democrats such as Barack Obama in statewide and national elections.

In 1780–81, a series of skirmishes and battles along the border between the two Carolinas help set the stage for the failure of Britain’s southern strategy for winning the Revolutionary War. Lord Cornwallis occupied Charlotte for a time, but the situation soon became untenable. The countryside seethed with Patriot fervor. His army left what Cornwallis termed “a hornets’ nest” and met its end in Virginia a few months later. Many Charlotte natives I know are hoping history will rhyme this year.