General News

How is Charlotte-Mecklenburg’s homeless population changing? The new Charlotte-Mecklenburg Point in Time Count for 2009-2015 describes who experienced homelessness, both sheltered and unsheltered (living in a place unfit for human habitation) on a given night in Mecklenburg County. This annual count is required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. It can help […]

Is the promise of the American Dream a reality only for the richest children? The latest book from Harvard’s Robert D. Putnam, Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis, investigates that question. Putnam, the Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, will appear Monday in Charlotte, […]

Mecklenburg’s 3,000 miles of creeks run through every part of the county. This includes uptown Charlotte, although such an urbanized spot of land might be the last place you would expect to find creeks. Many of uptown’s small creeks have been hidden from view over the years as land uses changed and storm pipes and […]

Ever wondered … what’s the oldest building in uptown Charlotte? If one were to compare the Charlotte skyline of 1975 with today’s, the city would be almost unrecognizable. Charlotte’s exponential growth over the past 40 years has produced a city much different in size and shape than even 20 years ago. But in creating this […]

A bill has passed the N.C. House that would do away with a decades-old provision for rezonings, the protest petition, which lets nearby property owners petition for a supermajority vote by a city council or town board on whether to approve the rezoning. In this pro/con package of opinion articles, Dilworth resident Jill Walker discusses […]

The N.C. House in March passed a bill to do away with the use of protest petitions in rezonings statewide, and neighborhood groups in Charlotte and other fast-growing communities fear they will lose their voice in shaping development. They are mistaken. The majority of rezonings in Charlotte do not generate valid protest petitions from neighboring […]

It is exasperating that, once again, North Carolina homeowners face the prospect of losing the ability to file a protest petition in rezonings. The most recent effort – a bill that has passed the N.C. House – represents the third time in less than three years that our state has been threatened with the loss […]

Tuesday was an almost perfect spring morning: cool, sun coming up and spring flowers ablaze. As I relished a morning walk about 4 miles south of uptown, I also relished something perhaps more gruesome. I gleefully squished dozens of green cankerworms that had fallen onto the street during Monday’s rain. April in Charlotte is a […]

Growing up, we had a lot of wild foods – things like persimmon pudding and blackberry pie – which I never realized might be considered wild foods. For the past few years I have been an avid hunter of deer, doves, squirrel and turkey, but this year I’ve expanded my interests into hunting rabbit, grouse […]

Since the recession ended, there has been a lot of discussion among demographers, pundits and others about Americans moving back to cities. For the first time in years, migration patterns were showing cities growing faster than suburbs. Research was starting to suggest that not all Americans are dreaming of a big house, lawn and an […]