Articles

By Katie Zager Chamberofcommerce.org, a business-minded website recently published an article outlining the cities with the most “House Poor” Homeowners. They define “house poor” as synonymous with “cost burdened,” using the 30% rule. That is: a household is considered cost-burdened if they spend more than 30% of their income on housing and housing-related expenses, such […]

By Sarah Ostyn, The Early Action Project The research is clear: 90% of the brain develops before age 51. Experiences that occur during this period set the stage for everything that is to come, making early childhood an exciting and significant time in our lives. Children – especially immigrant children and those in low-income households2 […]

By Jenny Hutchison, Ph.D.
Finding stable housing can be one of the greatest challenges for young people transitioning from foster care to young adulthood. What happens next can affect their economic mobility journey, as well as community wellbeing. But what’s the case for Mecklenburg County?

By Bridget Anderson and Mary Ann Priester, Ph.D.
This article reflects on the enduring partnership between the Charlotte Urban Institute and Mecklenburg County Community Support Services, which together, recently marked 10 years of advancing data-driven efforts to address housing instability and homelessness. As the formal project partnership comes to a close, this milestone offers an opportunity to look back on the impact of our shared work, the foundation it leaves for future progress, and the questions we must continue to ask ourselves to ensure data translates into action in people’s lives […]

By Sydney Idzikowski
The Charlotte Regional Data Trust (Data Trust) is an integrated data system where people can make requests of its data for research, evaluation or planning purposes.

The uses of data must be for public good and all requests for data are reviewed by our Data and Research Oversight Committee. Here. you will find requests people have submitted for Data Trust data so far in 2025 […]

By Asha Ellison
More than 100 community-minded data nerds gathered at the Grand Bohemian Charlotte on September 10 for the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership (NNIP) annual meeting. The network, composed of more than 30 local organizations in 31 U.S. cities, convenes once a year to mix, mingle, and share data insights and strategies to improve the quality of life for people across the nation. The three-day September event was hosted by the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute (Institute), the City of Charlotte, and Mecklenburg County. Collectively, the trio represents Charlotte in the network as a member of the NNIP through its collaboration to provide the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Quality of Life Explorer. This year’s meeting was particularly special because Institute staff had the opportunity to share the beauty, history, culture – and challenges – of the Queen City while learning and having fun along the way.

Those attending the event were able to participate in or observe engaging showcases, presentations, powerful panel discussions, and small group sessions that covered a range of topics, including the challenges and successes of local data use, governance […]

By Asha Ellison
Associate Professor of Sociology Vaughn Schmutz, Ph.D., was recently selected as the senior faculty fellow for the 2025-26 Gambrell Faculty Fellowship. He is the first senior faculty fellow in the history of the program. The Gambrell Faculty Fellowship began in 2019 to support innovative scholarship that leads to a great quality of life for everyone in the Charlotte region […]

By Liz Morrell, Ph.D.
Transportation, whether on foot, bus, train, or car is a lens that magnifies larger societal dynamics. On the one hand, it’s one of those near-universal experiences that unites us; yet, as with housing, education, and health, we experience it differently depending on who we are.  Conflicts arise when our individual subjectivities clash with each other, rather than co-incorporate.

In Charlotte, 3.7% of households lack reliable access to a personal vehicle. This is well below the national average of 8.6%.  That statistic underscores what many know – ours is a  car-dependent city. Ridership has fallen for both bus and light rail in recent years and, for many, public transportation is a curiosity or last resort, rather than a vital civic amenity.

There are two challenges with this […]

By Eric Moore, Ph.D.
Over the past year, we’ve gone deep into the world of corporate landlords and their growing footprint in Mecklenburg County. And we now have a new method to track these elusive entities, uncovering approximately 145 corporate investors who own at least 15 single-family homes each.
It turns out these investors control nearly 7.5% of all single-family homes in the county, far more than you might expect. But this is just the beginning. In the third and final installment of the “Understanding corporate landlords” series, we explore the changing landscape of corporate home ownership […]

By Sydney Idzikowski
What is participatory governance and why it is important? What does it looks like at the Data Trust. Dive into the discussion here […]

By Charlotte Urban Institute
The UNC Charlotte Urban Institute seeks the seventh cohort of faculty fellows to research issues related to economic mobility and quality of life arenas in the Charlotte region, with support from The Gambrell Foundation […]

By Sydney Idzikowski, Jamaal Kinard, Lori Thomas, Ph.D., and Jenny Ward
At the Charlotte Regional Data Trust (Data Trust), the data we hold in trust are about people and their lives.

These data can play a role in understanding challenges and informing solutions in an increasingly complex world. Addressing pervasive social challenges such as poverty, housing instability, and health disparities requires a holistic understanding that transcends the doors of individual agencies. This is precisely what the Data Trust is designed to do.

The Data Trust is a community-university partnership, built as a nonprofit organization, housed at the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute to bridge fragmented administrative data. We do this while prioritizing ethical data use and equipping changemakers such as researchers, policymakers, practitioners, and community leaders to develop more effective, collaborative solutions to community challenges […]