General News
Sustainability report card ranks Mecklenburg fair to middling
2014 Charlotte-Mecklenburg Sustainability Report Card Category Local Trend National Comparison Air Quality B C Energy Use A C Equity/Empowerment C C Food D C Jobs/Income C C Land Use D D Transportation B D Waste B – Water Use B B Charlotte-Mecklenburg’s first comprehensive sustainability report card is in, and the results are mixed. The […]
Saltbush – native but invasive
During a recent trip to the beach, I realized a number of plants native to the Coastal Plain have found a home in the Piedmont. Yaupon holly, beautyberry, wax myrtle and sweetbay magnolia have become staples in our gardens. Pitcher plants and longleaf pines occur in the natural landscapes of the Uwharries. A botanist friend […]
Bike corral + parklet in South End
There’s always a need for more public seating and bike racks in South End, especially now that food trucks and gallery openings are no longer a well-kept hot-spot secret, drawing hundreds of folks. Why circle the block multiple times looking for parking when you can roll up on two wheels right next to your destination? […]
Charlotte leaders head to Copenhagen
How did Copenhagen become an international model of urbanism? Four leaders from Charlotte and Mecklenburg County government, philanthropy and real estate will find out next month on a six-day study trip. Brian Collier from the Foundation For The Carolinas, Assistant Mecklenburg County Manager Leslie Johnson, at-large City Council member Vi Lyles and Crescent Communities CEO […]
A win for Redlair’s rare bigleaf magnolia
Walk through the forest at Redlair Preserve, an approximately 750-acre property preserved in Gaston County, and you will see in the understory something that look like a design by Dr. Seuss: A medium-sized tree sporting massive flowers and tropical-looking leaves that can grow 30 inches long and a foot wide. The trees are bigleaf magnolia […]
A day for neighborhoods to explore their future
If Charlotte is a city of neighborhoods, what happens when almost 20 of those neighborhoods spend a half-day at a retreat to encourage goal-setting? To find out, I spent Saturday morning at the City of Charlotte’s fourth Neighborhood Boards Retreat. Not surprisingly, the neighborhood representatives emerged with a cluster of goals. Representatives from 18 neighborhoods […]
Talk of the Towns: Salisbury
In this new series, PlanCharlotte visits planners from around the 14-county Charlotte region. In this second installment, we head north on I-85 to Salisbury in Rowan County. Salisbury, population 33,612, is the oldest city in the region. Its roots date to the 1750s, when colonial authorities established it as a county seat. Historic preservation remains […]
From car pull-off to mini-park
PlanCharlotte.org is asking readers to nominate spots in the Charlotte region that need a design makeover. (See our first installment in this series here and our most recent installment here.) Urban designers Keihly Moore and Alex Borisenko have launched a website, www.completeblocks.com, where they’re proposing a series of urban design retrofits, many of them nominated […]
Showing patriotism, one native plant at a time
Ruth Ann Grissom As a girl, I once had a vision of a grand flowerbed – a large rectangular plot of red, white and blue petunias replicating the stars and stripes of an American flag. This must have been the summer of 1976, during the celebration of our country’s bicentennial. When I presented the scheme […]
In pursuit of a tiny bird in a big forest
I’ve spent the spring and early summer in pursuit of a tiny, black and yellow bird with a buzzy song – the black-throated green warbler of the Uwharrie National Forest. It’s made for an experience I’ll never forget. As a Duke University graduate student, I’ve been an intern during May and June with the LandTrust […]