While The Square at Trade and Tryon is Charlotte's official town center, the unofficial capital for those wanting to see and be seen begins one block east.

Most weekend nights, hundreds - sometimes thousands - of teens and young adults walk the stretch around the EpiCentre entertainment complex. Bus after bus at the Charlotte Transportation Center drops off more youths happy to join the party.

The Ritz-Carlton is there. So is the city's arena. Restaurants and bars, a bowling alley and an upscale movie theater are all part of the draws that have transformed this once-decaying commercial zone into a thriving destination.

"It's a holiday weekend. And it's Friday," said Caitlin Linsted, 26, as she and a friend headed for a club to begin their three-day weekend. The woman wore a fashionable one-piece, leopard-print outfit with 4-inch heels.

John Ballard says the lure is obvious: "This is where everybody hangs. ... This is where all the girls be."

Such congregating is a long-held rite of passage when young people asserting their independence gather unsupervised to hang out with their friends. Some call it "cruising on foot" because this uptown crowd has parked the cars that were the centerpiece of previous generations' revelry.

Instead, these young people use Twitter and Facebook to find their friends and the night's best action.

Most nights are relatively trouble-free, police say, except for smaller incidents - such as fistfights, public drunkenness or drug use.

But when larger crowds flock to uptown for concerts, sports and other public events, minor incidents can mushroom into something bigger, as they did over the Memorial Day weekend. Violence broke out amid more than 20,000 people hanging out uptown hours after a NASCAR-themed street festival on May 28.

Police say large groups of unsupervised youths played a role in the disturbance, which ended with 70 arrests and one man, Antwan Smith, fatally shot. Several fights, some gang-related, erupted. And police said horse-playing kids would yell "gun" and begin sprinting, spreading fear in the crowd.

Determined not to see a repeat of such behavior, city leaders last week called for citizens' help as they outlined plans to better manage crowds expected uptown Monday for the July Fourth holiday.

Police had to call in reinforcements to control the May disturbance. They acknowledge they had underestimated the size of the crowd.

On Monday night, police say they'll deploy hundreds of officers uptown, bring in observation towers, and strictly enforce the curfew for those younger than 16.

Restaurants and other businesses at the transportation center will close early July 4 to discourage loitering. At least one civic group plans to walk the streets Monday night to model good behavior.

Police late last week could not provide detailed crime statistics and analysis of the uptown cruising circuit along Trade and College streets.

But most nights, they say, don't bring big problems.

"Crime problems down there are some drug use, some occasional disorder issues," says Sgt. Nick Pellicone, who supervises police response in the area. "A lot of the problems that we have at the transit center are people acting up. It could rise to the level of a disorderly conduct."

At the EpiCentre, it's more likely to be theft and alcohol-fueled fights, he says.

On Friday, the strip was awash with hundreds of people. Families with small children, couples on dates and groups of friends - many dressed to get noticed - moved through the night. Strains of a Southern country band wafted near the EpiCenter.

Keiaira Harley loves it. She's 15 and was out with friends - ages 17 and 11 - for a bite to eat.

"You've got fun things: You can eat here, watch movies. It's a great hang-out spot for kids."

"It can get crazy, though," she adds. She felt a little uncomfortable as crowds grew about 11:30 p.m. before the Memorial Day weekend disturbance.

UNC Charlotte criminologist Paul Friday sees today's cruise scene as evolution: "Every generation has done this. This is how young people, particularly young American males, grow up."

Still, he says, any public gathering of youths from across the city is bound to draw some troublemakers. Their bad acts can be more lethal today with the prevalence of guns and gangs.

On the night of the disturbance, Antwan Smith's killers came looking for the him at the transit center, where he was known to spend hours with his friends, family members say.

Cruising, as in cities and small towns nationally, has long been part of Charlotte, if sometimes controversial.

In the early 1990s, an uproar arose over cruising at Freedom Park, when long lines of cars, loud music and other annoying behaviors angered nearby neighbors. Similar issues cropped up later in areas of west Charlotte and at Hornets Nest Park.

And in 2006, when the cruising scene shifted uptown to Tryon and College streets, police beefed up enforcement - focusing heavily on driving violations - to squelch long lines of slow-moving cars that jammed streets.

Alternative hangouts for youths have dwindled as recreation centers have closed and malls crack down on loitering. So for now, many young people have settled into the EpiCentre strip - some fueled by the cheap, easy access transit provides to uptown.

"That's their country club," says Ray Wilson, a gang expert who works with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department. "That's the only place they can go ... where you're going to see everyone you know. You can eat there, you can meet girls there. If you want to buy drugs, you can do it right there."

Wilson says social networking over mobile phones makes it easy for teens to coordinate and meet.

One evening last month, Tyron Belk, 22, was waiting at the transit center for a bus to work. He doesn't hang out there and says more police are needed at the busy transfer station that covers half a city block.

Police "should be on every corner...," says Belk, citing Smith's killing nearby. "If you see more security, you'll see less crime, because nobody's going to do anything if there's a cop standing right there."

Torey Austin, 21, also changes buses at the transit center and sometimes hangs out along the strip. He finds the police presence can be too adversarial.

"They go a little bit overboard sometimes," Austin said. "I've seen somebody get locked up just for standing on the sidewalk. They're going to mess with you. I definitely see that sometimes it goes too far."

John Trunk, who directs the transit system's support services, says security officers can be hampered because they have no authority on the surrounding streets and sidewalks.

"Anyone who's standing there knows where the line of demarcation is between the transit center and the sidewalk," he said. "Unless they're impeding the flow of people walking on the sidewalk, there's nothing we can do."

Paul Friday, the criminologist, says while the city wants people uptown, crowd-control efforts can be tricky.

Young people have "got to have someplace to go," he says. "And they're going to go someplace until it's not tolerated anymore. What's happening when they crack down on these places, they're merely displacing the behavior."

Staff writer Courtney Ridenhour contributed.