General News

There are, broadly, two big worlds that overlap in the planning and development realm: The dirty, hands-on physical world of building and construction, and the wonky, alphabet-soup-of-jargon world of zoning, regulation and land use policy. Right now, Charlotte’s in the heat of the wonky phase. Although it’s drawn far less attention than the contentious debate […]

Decades of housing policy, from redlining to legal segregation to “urban renewal,” have left Charlotte a deeply unequal city, contributing to a large racial wealth gap and vastly different rates of homeownership between residents of different races. On Aug. 24, UNC Charlotte Urban Institute researcher Angelique Gaines and assistant director Ely Portillo joined local experts […]

This story was originally published in the Transit Time newsletter, which is produced in partnership between the Charlotte Urban Institute, the Charlotte Ledger and WFAE. Find out more and subscribe here. As Charlotte prepares to invest billions more into building new light rail, local planners are also betting big on another, more humble transit technology: […]

Less than 70 miles. That’s the distance between my home in Charlotte and our place in the Uwharries. Sometimes the two feel worlds apart. Blue city, red county. Skyscrapers, silos. Congested streets, open roads. High-rise condos, low-slung ranch houses. It sometimes seems they have nothing in common. And then a rare occurrence reminds us just […]

Water seems like an almost limitless resource. Turn on the tap, and there it is, clean and ready to use. Until, one day, it isn’t. Catawba Riverkeeper Brandon Jones joins this episode of the Future Charlotte podcast to talk about the biggest threats to our water (growth is high on the list, as we add […]

Charlotte is a city that’s often criticized for tearing down its history. But some of the most significant demolitions of the past few decades haven’t been historic structures, but rather buildings that didn’t make it to middle age — or even puberty. In a fast-growing city, plenty of change is to be expected. The built […]

Health influences everything from a person’s ability to work to medical debt, and health inequalities have big consequences in our community on economic mobility and people’s ability to get ahead. Yet the burden of poor health is not evenly spread, because of food deserts, lack of access to insurance, pharmacies and doctors, and the embedded […]

Buying a house in the Charlotte region has, in many ways, never been more challenging. Buyers face a dizzying array of obstacles: A historic supply crunch, skyrocketing prices and homes that sell faster and faster each month. The reasons are numerous. Housing supply never fully recovered after the 2008 economic crash and Great Recession drove […]

This story is part of the Transit Time newsletter, a partnership between the Urban Institute, the Charlotte Ledger and WFAE. Find out more and subscribe here. Charlotte plans to spend billions of dollars over the next two decades building new rail lines, a better bus system, greenways and roads. But in an age of self-driving […]

Charlotte’s growth rests, in the end, on the people who actually build our city: The construction industry. In this episode of the “Future Charlotte” podcast, general contractor Myers & Chapman CEO Marcus Rabun talks about the near-term challenges facing the industry such as covid-19, material and labor shortages. Rabun also discusses what might be an […]