Articles
This white paper was composed by researchers at the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute for Urban League of Central Carolinas as part of their project, The State of Ethnic Charlotte. The State of Ethnic Charlotte, 2011 is the first project of the Joe Martin Institute for Inclusive Policy at the Urban League of Central Carolinas. The […]
I’ve never thought of a loblolly plantation as a bona fide forest. The rows of neatly spaced and stalky trees seem more akin to a long-rotation corn crop. In most pine plantations, trees are thinned in 15 years, and the rest are harvested at 30. Like other agricultural land, pine plantations provide open space, but […]
Although a hard word to pronounce, “gentian” is a group of pretty flowers that are found all over the world, on all continents except Antarctica. There are more than 1,000 species of gentian worldwide, and gentians are found in a wide variety of habitats, from rainforest to desert. In this area, gentians are typically found […]
Local business leaders’ expectations for the upcoming quarter have dipped into negative territory for the first time since March, when a new opinion survey began. Not only is their outlook negative for the national economy – as it was after the second quarter – but they’re feeling grimmer about the local economy as well. The […]
Summer officially ends Friday, and the close of a week of cloudy, unseasonably cool weather marks an occasion to look back and remind ourselves of the Carolinas Piedmont in summer 2011. It was a summer of hail storms, high winds and in some parts, even the fringes of tropical storm Irene. The National Oceanic and […]
A rare joy in Charlotte is being able to live a compact, transit-supported lifestyle, where soul-sapping commuter journeys on interstates or arterial highways can be avoided. My wife, Linda, and I have worked hard to craft such a lifestyle, “aging in place” in Dilworth, where almost everything we need is within a mile of our […]
The Atlantic hurricane season spans half the year, June through November, but North Carolina typically sees the most storms, and some of the worst, in September. Our coast is especially vulnerable to hurricanes, but we sometimes experience their devastation here in the Piedmont. In the fall of 1989, I was living in Chapel Hill in […]
Ten years after the events of 9/11, if we want to assess how well we have learned about the threat of terrorism we need to look back. But we also need to look at our world today, to see how well our learning curve compares with those planning and carrying out terrorist events. And we […]
It took years, multiple political strategies, a bond vote, patience, weathering a brutal and ongoing economic downturn, more patience, and – finally – a multimedia event under a tent on a hot asphalt parking lot. But last Friday, ground was broken for a new park in uptown Charlotte: Romare Bearden Park. It’s notable for many […]
This time of year, I’m trying to get my fill of fresh tomatoes from the farmers market and my parents’ garden in the Uwharries. As fall approaches, I start to crave heartier food and switch to recipes that call for canned tomatoes. I rarely buy fresh tomatoes out of season, but when I’m eating out, […]
Charlotte-Mecklenburg high schools have some of the region’s highest graduation rates. They also have some of the lowest. A look at recently released public high school graduation rates for North Carolina shows a wide disparity in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. Yet CMS as a whole, compared to other systems in the region, has the lowest overall graduation […]
Despite recent rains, the Uwharries have experienced abnormally dry to moderate drought conditions for much of the summer. This isn’t unusual for our region. According to the N.C. Drought Management Advisory Council, our conditions ranged from abnormally dry to extreme drought in four of the past five summers. Days in the upper 90s and weeks […]