Articles

When it comes to the creative scene, Charlotte isn’t often mentioned in the same breath with peer cities like Austin or Nashville. After all, the city’s unofficial tagline is “Banktown,” not something like “Music City” or “Keep Austin Weird.” But Charlotte has a thriving creative community. And a new survey by the UNC Charlotte Urban […]

Nearly 60 years after the major legislative victories of the Civil Rights Movement, two troubling patterns persist–one economic, one geographic. First, Black Americans possess significantly lower levels of wealth than White Americans. Second, residential neighborhoods across the country remain highly segregated by race. These patterns and their connections to each other are largely undisputed in […]

The message seems to be getting out — monarchs need milkweed. The charismatic orange and black butterflies seek nectar on a wide variety of flowers, but their caterpillars feed on no other plant. And that appears to be where the clarity ends. Even after planting and managing for several of the 16 milkweed species native […]

Quick–wherever you are, look at the people around you, or remember the last time you were in a group. Now imagine the group tripling in size. That’s the America Matthew Yglesias desires. In his book One Billion Americans, Yglesias argues that the U.S., with its 330 million people, is “empty,” with depressing future consequences for […]

Here’s another paradox from the COVID-19 pandemic: People drove less, but the streets got more deadly. That’s especially true for pedestrians, a new report from Smart Growth America shows. “Dangerous by Design,” the group’s annual report highlighting pedestrian fatalities, shows that over 6,500 people were hit and killed while walking in 2020 – a 4.5% […]

Neighborhood Defenders Katherine Levine Einstein, David M. Glick, and Maxwell Palmer Available in paperback from $24.99 Hometown Inequality Brian F. Schaffner, Jesse H. Rhodes, and Raymond J. La Raja Available in paperback from $34.99 One of the favorite mythologies of American politics is that local government is the closest thing we have to direct democracy. […]

Charlotte’s losing three football fields a day worth of trees – or, at least, we were from 2012 to 2018. But after four more years of a torrid building boom, no one can say with any certainty whether that loss has accelerated, slowed down or remains unchanged. The city of Charlotte hopes to soon begin […]

Bucket of Doom. A slasher movie from the 1970s? The latest season of Fortnite? No, but for many homeowners, it might be something equally thrilling – an effective, inexpensive and safe way to control mosquitos. Five-gallon buckets are often a source of standing water where mosquitos can breed. This simple idea turns that around so […]

As the Charlotte Area Transit System continues struggling to fill bus driver positions, the agency could soon implement bus service cuts to deal with the shortage and create a more reliable schedule. For months, CATS has been dealing with a flood of unscheduled sick days, which the transit agency has blamed on a “loophole” in […]

Dr. Lori Thomas Our community’s challenges extend past any one silo, organization or jurisdictional line. Public education systems address hunger, health, homelessness, and other impacts of poverty. Our jails and prisons are mental health and substance use treatment facilities. Our workforce development efforts must circumvent fragmented transportation, distant and still unaffordable housing before people can […]

One of Charlotte’s quintessential suburban communities has big plans to transform itself into a dense, walkable, mixed-use center. Greenways, sidewalks, protected bike lanes and transit would replace the car-choked expressways and huge parking lots that dominate the auto-centric area now. We’re not talking about Ballantyne or SouthPark. Leaders in University City — Charlotte’s second-largest employment […]

You’ve surely seen them, but you might not have noticed them—roadside signs with a big “Z,” indicating an upcoming public hearing on zoning at an interminable City Council meeting. Most of us know that zoning exists. Perhaps we even know it involves planning and land use. But for many of us, the specific details are […]