Articles

We know North Carolina is filled with great places: both natural landscapes and cultural and historic treasures, from main streets to parks to neighborhoods. Here’s your chance to suggest places that deserve public recognition and celebration. The N.C. Chapter of the American Planning Association wants nominations from the public for Great Main Street and Great […]

Is there anything more diverting for a Southerner than a couple of inches of snow? The mere suggestion of the slightest chance of a flurry whips us into a frenzy. When my niece and nephew were younger, they’d flush ice cubes down the toilet then go to bed wearing their pajamas inside out and underpants […]

Where your child (or grandchild or niece) goes to school is important to you personally. How the demographics of your child’s district compare to that of other districts across the country is important to researchers, policy makers and even disaster relief planners. A program used in North Carolina should streamline the work of updating this […]

Home. The word means many different things to many different people. For some, it might be a house. For others, it might be a park bench or a tent behind a supermarket. Just as homes can take many forms, so can homelessness. I was forced to reflect on this last month, as a volunteer with […]

ISC out and about ISC Team members Diane Gavarkavich, Ashley Williams, and Selena Skorman volunteered with the Homeless Services Network to conduct the annual Point in Time Count, which seeks to count the number of sheltered and unsheltered homeless in Mecklenburg County on a given night in January. Click here to read more ISC presented […]

I’m not immune to the charms of a dozen roses on Valentine’s Day – or any day for that matter – though I’m always disheartened by those with no discernible fragrance and perfect buds that inexplicably shrivel and droop. These are not attributes one cares to associate with romance. I try to limit my purchase […]

Several recent newspaper articles have described the city’s plans to subsidize a new edge city west of Charlotte Douglas International Airport by spending about $45 million to widen and extend streets in the Dixie Berryhill area. City leaders want to build on the airport’s expansion and the new Norfolk Southern freight center at the airport […]

Whether you want to look up data or understand an issue or trend affecting the Charlotte region, the online resources of the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute are available to help you. There are also many other programs on campus that work with local groups. The institute offers articles and data on a range of issues […]

Charlotte city planners are moving forward with a plan to look – in stages – at revising the city-county zoning ordinance, hoping to finish that multiyear process by 2018. A city-hired consultant last July reported that the ordinance, adopted 22 years ago, too often works against the goals of the city’s adopted plans. Plus, said […]

The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh has an area where you can see through the glass and watch scientists at work, and in this section they also have a couple of glass displays that house a much smaller worker of the creepy crawly variety – dermestid beetles. These beetles have a job […]

In 2006, solar farms in North Carolina were few and far between. Last year, the state added more solar power capacity, about 400 megawatts, than any state except California, according to a report from NPD Solarbuzz. A combination of tax incentives, aggressive renewable energy mandates and decreasing costs has driven the industry’s growth in the […]

In North Carolina, the achievement gap between economically disadvantaged students and their wealthier peers is about 30 percentage points,[1] and the graduation gap between these two groups is more than 11 percentage points.[2] Before I was a lawyer or a legislator, I fought this reality firsthand as a Teach For America teacher. My experience working […]