General News

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 […]

Over the past four decades, North Carolina has grown from a state of 5.08 million to 9.54 million people. Along with that near-doubling in population has come a decisive shift in the state’s societal landscape. Once a spread-out state of small farms, small factories and small cities and towns, it is increasingly defined and driven […]

I’ve spent many hours in the last few years working on behalf of Charlotte-area farms and farmers, trying to help build and nurture a community-based food system and experimenting with new ways to distribute food from local farms to customers. But this summer my focus shifted from farmers in the fields to customers in the […]

Just for fun, before watching Monday night’s Charlotte City Council hearing on the newest plan for downtown Charlotte, I hauled out my yellowing copy of the 1966 Odell Plan. (See original drawings from the plan here.) It’s both fun and humbling to see how stunningly wrong that plan was about so much. Then I thumbed […]

Have you wondered whether bees in our area are suffering from colony collapse disorder? Do you know what fly fishing’s aquatic insects can tell us about water quality? Entomologists (insect scientists) are no longer the only people watching bugs. Like many branches of natural science, entomology has reached out to citizen scientists for help in […]

Charlotte’s draft 2020 Vision Plan is a disappointing document. Despite the hard work, the glossy graphics are mostly pretty pictures of conventional thinking rather than visions for a different future. A plan promoted as visionary should acknowledge that urgent environmental and economic forces demand challenging changes to the status quo, and then propose far-reaching and […]

A peach display in the grocery store might mention where the fruit was grown. Too often, that means Georgia or California. At a farm stand in the Sandhills, the peaches come from an orchard right here on the edge of the Uwharries. Growers even note the specific variety. After writing about the Ophir apple last […]