Articles
It’s that time of year again – for changing skies and summer storms. A little more than a year ago, early on March 3, 2012, an unannounced tornado blew through parts of Harrisburg and eastern Mecklenburg County. The twister injured four people, destroyed six homes and left 41 others uninhabitable or with major damage – […]
On the cusp of summer, just when I begin to dread the onset of unrelenting heat and humidity, a cool and soothing vision appears in our forests and yards – the blooms of native and Asian hydrangeas. Wild hydrangea (Hydrangea arborescens) is uncommon, even rare, in the Piedmont. I’ve seen them at only one location […]
On a blustery March day last year, Syreeta Kitchen-Dukes and her neighbors in the Applegate Community of east Charlotte gathered in rainy front yards to meet the neighborhood’s newest residents: 177 young trees. See more tree photos at article’s end. The would-be forest arrived with a crew from TreesCharlotte, a public/private collaborative whose goal is […]
You’d think I would have known better. After all, I’ve been writing about growth since before they called it Smart Growth, and I’m still writing about it now that it’s “resiliency,” or “sustainable growth” or whatever the next term is. I can’t count how many times I’ve explained that when you decide where you want […]
In order to keep friends and supporters of the Institute for Social Capital informed of its work, we’re pleased to share with you this newsletter, which will be published quarterly and shared with community leaders, university faculty and other friends of the institute. UPCOMING EVENTS: Please join us for our RE-Introduction of the Institute for […]
Have you been seeing more turtles than usual on your morning commute lately? If you’ve been driving this spring on rural highways in North Carolina, you might have detected a surge in turtle activity, especially snapping turtles. Chelydraserpentina, or the common snapping turtle, is one of the more striking members of our state’s turtle clan. […]
Julie Campoli’s new paperback, Made for Walking: Density and Neighborhood Form, is a must read for anyone in and around Charlotte who wants to know what it takes to make good neighborhoods into great ones. The book follows Campoli’s earlier Visualizing Density with photographer Alex S. MacLean; both were published by the Lincoln Institute of […]
“Smart Growth was an intellectual fetish of a self-selected liberal Eastern elite.” Robert J. Grow, president and CEO of Envision Utah, a public-private collaboration in the Salt Lake City region, told about 400 Charlotte region residents that his Western region calls what it does “quality growth.” “It was our growth,” he said. “It was our […]
Years ago, a friend in Uwharrie showed me a crooked tree on his family’s property. Its trunk was bent at two right angles, creating a horizontal span about 4 feet off the ground. He said they called it their “ducker-header” tree. Their clever terminology came to mind again recently when I learned about the Trail […]
Mecklenburg County residents can add one more item to the growing list of uses for their smartphones: reporting water pollution. Be a Water Watcher Click here to learn about downloading the Water Watcher app for your smart phone. Charlotte Mecklenburg Storm Water Services launched a new app in February called Water Watchers, which lets users […]
Fact No. 1: A sidewalk runs beside the light rail tracks through South End, from Morehead Street to a little north of the Scaleybark Station. Fact. No. 2: South End, which grew up from what had been an industrial sector of the city (nearby Dilworth and Wilmore neighborhoods notwithstanding), does not have a park. Add […]
The discovery of a new species conjures images of explorers in pith helmets hacking through remote regions of the Amazon and stumbling across something outlandish. The reality is generally much less dramatic. New species can still be found in our own backyards, even in the well-trod Piedmont. According to Alan Weakley, director of the Herbarium […]