Articles

[title_1]
How to make Charlotte a place where creatives can thrive
   August 29, 2022
Ely Portillo

Let's be honest: When you think "Charlotte," the next words to pop into your head aren't "creative powerhouse," are they?

People are more likely to think of Charlotte as a center of banking and finance, a busy airline hub, or a hothouse for the booming real estate market. But Charlotte is also a creative center in its own right, and there are people working to make sure the city learns...

Read more


[title_1]
Is the Charlotte region a 'brain hub' like Raleigh-Durham?
   August 22, 2022
Aaron Houck

The Charlotte region is a banking hub, an air travel hub, even a sports hub — but is it a “brain hub”? That’s the most important question local policymakers will find themselves asking after reading Enrico Moretti’s The New Geography of Jobs. Brain hubs enjoy disproportionate prosperity and opportunity, and the gap between them and other cities and regions will only widen. Raleigh-...

Read more


[title_1]
Explore new data about Charlotte via interactive maps
   August 22, 2022
Ely Portillo

The Quality of Life Explorer — Charlotte-Mecklenburg's source for more than 80 interactively mapped variables about the economy, environment, demographics and more — has been updated with new information allowing you to explore our community. 

Maps that rely on data from the U.S. Census' American Community Survey are now up-to-date. This...

Read more


[title_1]
Four things I wish I’d known about Charlotte transit before I started writing about it
   August 17, 2022
Ely Portillo

Charlotte’s path forward on transit is murky. It’s unclear when or if we’ll have a vote on a new, one-cent sales tax. No one knows how to revive the stalled Red Line commuter rail. And with driver shortages and service cuts, bus ridership is in free-fall.

As we talk about how to move ahead, it’s more important than ever to have a common baseline and understanding of transit in...

Read more


[title_1]
New Gambrell Faculty Fellows cohort will focus on different aspects of equity
   August 17, 2022
Ely Portillo

As the Charlotte region reckons with both the immediate aftermath of COVID-19 and longstanding challenges such as segregation and educational inequities, the Gambrell Faculty Fellows program has named a new cohort of scholars to help illuminate the way to a more equitable community. 

The fourth...

Read more


[title_1]
What Charlotte can learn from other cities about taxing transit
   August 12, 2022

Steve Harrison, WFAE

Earlier this summer, the transit system that serves Columbus, Ohio, made a big announcement: It wouldn’t be seeking voter approval for a half-cent sales tax for transit.

Read more


[title_1]
What's the future of hip-hop architecture in Charlotte?
   August 11, 2022
Ely Portillo

Charlotte’s seen rapid growth over the past several decades, but many say that boom has come at the cost of inclusivity and, perhaps, even a bit of the city’s soul. With the loss of many historic buildings and without much of an identifiable design vernacular — aside, perhaps, from the profusion of five-story apartment buildings — Charlotte’s even been accused of looking and feeling bland....

Read more


[title_1]
Survey sheds light on the future of Charlotte’s creative community
   August 10, 2022
Ely Portillo

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...

Read more


[title_1]
Race, segregation and profit in the American housing market
   August 10, 2022
Aaron Houck

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...

Read more


[title_1]
Milkweed for monarchs? The answer isn’t so simple
   August 10, 2022
Ruth Ann Grissom

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 to North Carolina, I was still perplexed by the monarch’s preferences and...

Read more