Articles

I’ve spent time walking in the woods this spring, and I’m always excited by what I find. The other day, while evaluating a property the LandTrust for Central North Carolina is considering for protection, we found a patch of pink lady slippers with a few in bloom. Another wetland the landowner is considering protecting was […]

Charlotte is joining dozens of other cities around the world, as well as the departments of transportation for North Carolina and the U.S., in declaring its intent to eliminate traffic fatalities and serious injuries – including bicycle and pedestrians as well as autos. It’s a movement called Vision Zero. And it might result in the […]

[highlightrule]The annual Point-in-Time Count finds that since 2010, the number of permanent housing beds has increased and overall homelessness has decreased.[/highlightrule] Click image to download PDF version of the report. Even while Mecklenburg County’s population has grown, a yearly count since 2010 has found declining numbers of people who were experiencing homelessness during a one-night […]

T.S. Eliot claimed April is the cruelest month, but for gardeners, I’d argue it’s the busiest. In the Piedmont, it’s our last chance to plant trees and shrubs until fall. The soil is warm enough to sow cucumbers, peppers, green beans and squash, and it’s finally safe to set out tomatoes and basil. Catalogues and […]

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning Department has begun a large public initiative to produce a new zoning ordinance – the first big rewrite since a contentious one in the 1980s-1990s. PlanCharlotte editor Mary Newsom met with interim Planning Director Ed McKinney to hear how the process is going. They talked about how to preserve neighborhood character, what […]

With damp spring rains, snails and slugs may be more visible in gardens and woods. North Carolina is home to more than 200 species of native terrestrial gastropods, 30-plus introduced species of land snails or slugs, and approximately 52 species of freshwater snails. Snails are members of the phylum Mollusca and in the taxonomic class […]

The northern flicker (Colaptes auratus) is native to most of North America, parts of Central America, Cuba and the Cayman islands. It is one of a few species of woodpeckers that migrate. Flickers in the northern part of their range move south for the winter. It is a medium-sized woodpecker, brown with black spots and […]

Since the highly contentious 2016 election cycle, the growing divide between Americans of different backgrounds on many issues has been well documented. But do those divides show up between residents of a single city? The UNC Charlotte Urban Institute’s most recent Annual Survey of Mecklenburg County provides insight into how such differences show up on […]

The Uwharries have produced state champion longleaf and shortleaf pines, but the vast majority of loblollies in the region are harvested long before they reach maturity. I tend to think of them as a long-rotation crop. A recent visit to Congaree National Park near Columbia reminded me of the loblolly’s glorious potential. At more than […]

Part of the 2017 KEEPING WATCH initiative By Meredith Hebden The Charlotte Coliseum on Tyvola Road had just opened to much fanfare when I arrived in Charlotte in September 1988. Yet it became outdated within 13 years and was demolished in 2007. When I went back last fall, 28 years later, almost all traces of […]

SHELBY — If you’re thinking downtowns are dead, you haven’t been paying attention lately. I recently got an earful of downtown success stories from some of North Carolina’s smaller cities and towns, where residents have worked hard for decades to bring life back to once-hollow downtowns. The occasion was the annual North Carolina Main Street […]

If New York, famous for traffic congestion and less-than courteous drivers, can do it, why can’t Charlotte? A public discussion Tuesday, April 4, in uptown Charlotte will feature the New York traffic official who oversaw 400 miles of new bike lanes, helped launch the country’s largest bike-share program and transformed 180 acres of asphalt into […]