General News
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 […]
Keep up with the Institute for Social Capital: July newsletter
ISC out and about Bill Anderson, Executive Director of MeckEd and Amy Hawn Nelson, ISC Director, attend a community event with Amy’s new baby, Fincher Louisa Nelson, who was born February 22, 2014. Fincher is already becoming known around town as Civic Baby (photo above). ISC Team members attend an event hosted by UNC Charlotte […]
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 […]
Voters born elsewhere make up nearly half of N.C. electorate
One hundred years ago, when North Carolina had a population of about 2.5 million people, more than nine out of 10 residents were native Tar Heels. Today’s North Carolina, in contrast, approaches a population of 10 million, with more than 4 million residents born in another state or country. Population growth and change have had […]
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 […]
Cabarrus’ Lomax farm faces uncertain future
Back in the woods off N.C. 49, the winding blacktop ends beside a greenhouse. Thomas Gentry, a UNC Charlotte architecture professor, is watering tomatoes on a humid July afternoon. A man in a work truck creeps along the gravel drive. “The power back on?” he asks, pulling next to the greenhouse. Gentry nods. “Good.” It’s […]
South End Rail Trail vision gets boost for art
More than two years ago, the idea emerged from workshops sponsored by Historic South End to plan and develop a new system of parks and public spaces along the LYNX Blue Line. As of last month, the idea of creating more beauty and excitement in the area is closer to materializing. Charlotte Center City Partners […]
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 […]