Maps

For decades, the single-family home rental market was a small-scale industry, made up almost entirely of local landlords who rented out a few houses they bought as investment properties, or perhaps inherited, or held on to after relocating. But the years since the Great Recession have witnessed a dramatic shift, as Wall Street-backed rental companies […]

Which Charlotte neighborhoods have gotten denser, with more residences per acre? Where have average home sizes ballooned? Is the proportion of single-family homes rising or falling in neighborhoods where new apartments and tear-downs vie for space? Newly updated maps on the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Quality of Life Explorer allow you to probe these questions and visualize changes […]

This map shows the cumulative number of confirmed coronavirus cases per 100,000 residents in the 14-county region the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute serves. The number varies significantly between the counties, which could be a reflection of factors ranging from population density to how many tests have been administered. This map, and the below graphics, will […]

By Nathan Griffin
Charlotte’s aging buildings are being torn down at an alarming rate, the product of a fast-growing population and strong real estate market.

Some were fine examples of classic architecture, like the long since demolished Masonic Temple on South Tryon, an Egyptian Revival-style building from 1914, or Mecklenburg County’s first main library, built in 1903 with a grant from Andrew Carnegie.

Others were notable for their cultural and historical connection — for instance, the recently demolished library and auditorium at Central Piedmont Community College’s central campus, which provided a community resource for learning and gathering. When these buildings are destroyed, some small part of the character and history of the city is lost with them [ …]

Charlotte is losing over three football fields a day worth of trees. That’s the sobering conclusion of a study by the University of Vermont in collaboration with TreesCharlotte, detailing how development, age, storms and other factors have cut down Charlotte’s tree canopy. The percentage of Charlotte covered by tree canopy fell from 49% to 45% […]

The coronavirus pandemic has generated a flood of data, maps and other resources to track the spread — and places to get help — throughout the region. Many of these resources are scattered across different websites and dashboards. Here’s a brief summary of what’s available, collected in one place. We will update this list as […]

Charlotte is familiar with the so-called “crescent” and “wedge,” the longstanding pattern of race, income and wealth distribution that shapes much of the city. Wealthier, and often more white, residents are concentrated in the wedge-shaped slice of south Charlotte, while an arc of lower-income communities stretches to the north, east and west. It’s an oft-referenced […]

Although North and South Carolina are urbanizing, with fast-growing cities and suburbs, agriculture remains a major piece of the economy for both states. Agriculture contributes $78 billion to North Carolina’s economy and $42 billion to South Carolina’s. It’s fairly well-known that North Carolina is a major turkey producer (No. 2 in the nation). But what […]

The term “Latino,” like “Hispanic,” covers many different countries and cultures. With the opening last month of the exhibit “¡NUEVOlution!: Latinos and the New South,” at Charlotte’s Levine Museum of the New South, and with National Hispanic Heritage Month taking place in the first part of October, the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute looked at the […]

Charlotte’s popular Yiasou Greek Festival kicks off this week, the first in a series of international festivals taking place in Hickory and Charlotte and featuring Indian, German and Latino culture, with UNC Charlotte’s 40th annual International Festival on Oct. 17. With the spotlight on those cultural groups, researchers at the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute have […]

With students heading back to school Monday, Aug. 24, at most Charlotte-area public school districts, school buses are already rolling as drivers practice their routes. (Nearby S.C. schools mostly opened this week.) School buses constitute the state’s largest public transit system. An estimated 13,400 buses will carry some 800,000 N.C. youngsters to school and back […]

With the final leg of I-485 opening in June, motorists cheered the new, unclogged lanes. But if the past is prologue, eventually new development nearby will bring congestion. Across the United States, it’s always the same story with the same ending: a loop highway is built around a growing city. It provides traffic relief for […]