Articles

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 Yet it became outdated within 13 years and was demolished in 2007.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 […]

The City of Charlotte is proposing creating two protected bicycle lanes through uptown Charlotte to connect the Little Sugar Creek Greenway, part of the Cross Charlotte Trail, to the Irwin Creek Greenway on the other side of uptown. Vivian Coleman of the Charlotte Department of Transportation’s Uptown Connects study told a Charlotte City Council committee […]

What can the community do to encourage and protect housing that more low-income families can afford? Three upcoming events at UNC Charlotte will look at the many interrelated issues, from development challenges to neighborhood action to innovations. All events are free and open to the public. FRIDAY, MARCH 31 – URBAN COMPLEXITIES: AFFORDABLE HOUSING AND […]

A few years ago at the Pee Dee National Wildlife Refuge in Anson County, we spotted an interesting species, thought to be out of its natural range – the wood stork (Mycteria americana). This was during a meeting of the Greater Uwharrie Conservation Partnership, and we saw four wood storks, all juvenile, perched on dead […]

Highlights ISC out and about While we love numbers and analyzing data, we also love being a part of the community. Check out how we have recently been active and where you might spot us next. READ MORE Reports using ISC data We highlight recent research that utilizes data from the ISC Community Database. READ […]

More cycling in Charlotte is good for you, even if you never mount a bicycle. More butts on bikes means less congestion and noise on local roads, cleaner air, fewer traffic fatalities and ultimately a lighter burden on our health care system. Purchasing, operating, and maintaining a bicycle is also many times cheaper as a […]

A band of light rain passed through the Uwharries on a recent Saturday evening. By Sunday morning, the sky was crystalline blue. Despite a lively northwest breeze, the temperature was unseasonably mild. I was out with the dogs, admiring the tawny field of native grass backlit by the unadulterated sun. Suddenly, a line of smoke […]

A team of fourth- and fifth-grade students from Steele Creek Elementary School in Charlotte won first place Saturday, March 4, in the second Autobell Car Wash Creek Challenge at UNC Charlotte. The morning contest capped weeks of study and activities focusing on science and water quality topics as well as local history and geography. Eight […]

If you’re like most people in the Charlotte area you drive a lot, and most of that is alone. Now a new initiative is encouraging people to try to limit those single-person trips by car. Sustain Charlotte, a local nonprofit that focuses on solving the city’s sustainability challenges, has launched an effort until Oct. 31 […]

Mecklenburg County’s population of white-tailed deer has ballooned in recent years, as residents of Charlotte and other towns can verify with frequent sightings of deer gamboling and grazing in backyards, gardens, parks and greenways. At the same time, deer hunting in North Carolina’s most urbanized county has also expanded, in part through specialized hunts. The […]