General News

When it comes to transportation and transit in Charlotte, it seems like there are as many questions as there are answers these days. Add in equity and economic mobility, and the picture gets even more complex. The UNC Charlotte Urban Institute’s second Schul conversation focused on these questions (the first explored gentrification and displacement). The […]

Just a couple of years ago, Charlotte Area Transit System planners were talking a lot about the potential for bus-only lanes to make the city’s buses faster and more reliable, giving them an edge over cars stuck in gridlock. Charlotte debuted a blocks-long bus-only lane on Fourth Street. Then, the city marked off one lane […]

Under federal and North Carolina law, human trafficking is defined as using force, fraud, or coercion to obtain some type of labor or commercial sex act. And any minor involved in a commercial sex act is a victim of trafficking. Trafficking is often confused with human smuggling, which consists of the movement of people across […]

Becky Dill’s phone was full. After moving to Wadesboro from Pennsylvania, she’d started taking photos of all the pretty wildflowers she found along the backroads of Anson County. She needed to ditch some images. While searching for options to archive her photos, she stumbled across iNaturalist. It seemed too good to be true – the […]

If “superstar” cities rationalize their land-use policies, what does it mean for the Charlotte region? As the global economy increasingly rewards technological innovation, the gains from productivity enhancements have not been distributed evenly across cities and regions. The residents of so-called “superstar” cities–including Boston, New York, San Francisco, San Jose, and Seattle–have captured a disproportionate […]

Michael Gallis is a longtime planner with a big idea for Charlotte: Throw out the city’s transit expansion plans and start from scratch. Gallis — who’s been involved in some of the big plans guiding Charlotte’s future, including the original five-corridor transit plan developed before the Blue Line light rail — doesn’t hold back when […]

If there’s one constant in Charlotte, it’s change. And while the pace of new building and construction might make you think Charlotte doesn’t have much history (at least, not much left), there’s plenty to explore in the city’s past. The rebranding and upcoming changes to the Epicentre got me thinking about the ephemeral nature of […]

Charlotte loves its trees. But are we willing to do all that we can to save them? That’s the paradoxical question confronting Jane Singleton Myers, executive director of TreesCharlotte. The city’s iconic tree canopy has shrunk from 49% to 45% coverage as of 2017, and likely more in the five years since the last comprehensive […]

Our first Schul conversation this fall focused on gentrification and displacement – a conversation that’s necessary and often difficult. The discussion featured three panelists: one of our Gambrell Faculty Fellows, Dr. Kendra Jason; Charlotte attorney and community housing advocate, Ismaail Qaiyim; research economist at the US Census Bureau, Dr. Kate Pennington; and our Director of […]

Charlotte’s transit plan is dead — long live the Charlotte region’s transit plan? It’s been almost two years since the $13.5 billion Charlotte MOVES plan was unveiled, and there have been weeks of hints that changes are coming to the city’s plan for expanded rail, bus and other transportation options. Now, the shape and scope […]