Twenty-six dollars

Each year, approximately seven million tourists flood the Charleston peninsula and its surrounding beaches and historical sites (crda.org). Because of its historical role as a hub of rice, indigo, and cotton production, one of the popular locations to which travelers venture beyond the peninsula is the plantation homes and gardens. These plantations acted as the relocation sites for some of the millions of slaves that arrived in America during the 18th and 19th centuries. Today, the plantations are preserved as sites for historical tours, wedding ceremonies, and garden and wildlife explorations. Among the many plantations advertised on Charleston’s tourism webpage is Boone Hall Plantation, which markets itself as the “number 1 plantation in the Charleston Area”, according to USA Today (charlestoncvb.com). With a $26 admission ticket, visitors can explore the plantation grounds where nine 18th century slave dwellings have been preserved in a row along Horlbeck Creek, in sight of the Big House.   

is a decent price for a

“must-see” attraction.

The plantation sites are not the only landscapes marketed as “must-see stop[s]” for tourists (charlestoncvb.com). As an industry that provides an estimated $8 billion annual to Charleston’s economy, tourism efforts have been extended to most of the city’s “cobblestone streets and charming alleys” (Connors and Spear 2019). 

You ought to invest:

The City of Charleston is subject to the same waves of the neoliberal economic system throughout the United States, under which the city must develop itself as a brand that sells its lifestyle to tourists as well as residents. While the city targets entrepreneurs to move to Lowcountry (“Charleston offers the ideal environment for entrepreneurs to thrive in a metro that consistently tops the World’s Best Cities lists” reads the Charleston Regional Development Alliance “Entrepreneurial Resources” webpage), real estate advertisements promote “waterfront family home[s]” that “offer expansive views of the historic Ashley River in downtown Charleston” as a major selling point to those settling permanently or seeking a second-home (crda.org; “72 Murray Blvd” 2020). These parallel advertising schemes used to attract tourists and residents emphasize the city’s historic preservation, waterfront views, and “South of Broad” charm, distort the city’s historic restoration (land infill projects on marshy foundations) and “climate-fueled floods and storms” that transforms the idyllic waterfront into an expensive threat (Gaul 2020). Despite these realities that homeowners will face, websites and blogs entice their readers to be more than a tourist: “People vacation here; you could live here" (crda.org).

the Holy City is a

lucrative cash crop

Several important narratives are silenced in the marketing of the “holy city” of Charleston (referred to as such due to its skyline of church steeples and early foundations of religious freedom). The whole of Charleston has become wrapped up in circuits of capital, a process which has transformed the city itself into a plantation site, whose cash crop is the manipulated narratives that tell the tale of a luxurious waterfront lifestyle that the tourist industry frames for residents and tourists alike. Those inside the frame have been trained to see the problems of the city as normal—regular flooding and frequent hurricane evacuation announcements are par for the course, and nothing that can’t be covered over by an abundance of flower boxes, an instagram post of the sunset over the Ravenel Bridge, and investing billions in a new “wall of distraction” (Young, quoted in Gaul 2020).

​

So here’s to you, Chuck,

to Dorian, Locke, Calhoun,

Hugo and Ashley. 

To Matthew, Murray,

and Gaston. To Lowcountry,

luxury life. Cheers.