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Ely Portillo

Stories by Ely Portillo

2020: Four plans coming together next year will guide growth for a generation
August 21, 2019
Next year’s news cycle is already looking pretty crowded, between big-ticket events like the Republican National Convention in Charlotte, the summer Olympics in Tokyo and, of course, the 2020...

‘Horrifyingly beautiful:’ An architect and designer turns his attention to borders and walls
August 19, 2019
Ronald Rael gained national attention this summer for installing teeter-totters through the U.S.-Mexico border fence, allowing children on either side to play, but the architect and designer has...

Charlotte is planning a new vision for center city. How’d we do on the last one?
August 13, 2019
Charlotte is a city that loves big plans and heady visions. And since the 1960s, making a new plan for the city’s center has been the most regularly repeated tradition in Charlotte visions....

Charlotte’s torn down a lot of old buildings. But one type has staying power.
August 7, 2019
Breweries, apartments, hip food halls, creative offices, coworking spaces: Charlotte developers keep finding new uses for the city’s old mills. As a post-war, Sunbelt boomtown, Charlotte has...

How likely are Charlotte-area kids born into poverty to move up the income ladder?
July 30, 2019

Fifty out of 50: That’s where the Charlotte area ranked in Harvard economist Raj Chetty’s influential 2014 study of economic mobility.