North Carolinians are drinking in the streets

As a former farming town ensnared in Charlotte’s sprawl, Monroe, North Carolina has had a tough time making a play for tourism and relocation dollars.

Union County’s seat doesn’t have a waterfront or uniquely quaint downtown, so its recent self-promotion has focused on what you can do there when you’re not doing much of anything else. Department store magnate John Montgomery Belk’s Neoclassical mansion on South Hayne Street is reportedly being remade as an Airbnb, and at least one television show has done a segment on the local winery’s treehouses, which can be rented by the night or the hour.