General News

Several recent newspaper articles have described the city’s plans to subsidize a new edge city west of Charlotte Douglas International Airport by spending about $45 million to widen and extend streets in the Dixie Berryhill area. City leaders want to build on the airport’s expansion and the new Norfolk Southern freight center at the airport […]

Whether you want to look up data or understand an issue or trend affecting the Charlotte region, the online resources of the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute are available to help you. There are also many other programs on campus that work with local groups. The institute offers articles and data on a range of issues […]

Charlotte city planners are moving forward with a plan to look – in stages – at revising the city-county zoning ordinance, hoping to finish that multiyear process by 2018. A city-hired consultant last July reported that the ordinance, adopted 22 years ago, too often works against the goals of the city’s adopted plans. Plus, said […]

The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh has an area where you can see through the glass and watch scientists at work, and in this section they also have a couple of glass displays that house a much smaller worker of the creepy crawly variety – dermestid beetles. These beetles have a job […]

In 2006, solar farms in North Carolina were few and far between. Last year, the state added more solar power capacity, about 400 megawatts, than any state except California, according to a report from NPD Solarbuzz. A combination of tax incentives, aggressive renewable energy mandates and decreasing costs has driven the industry’s growth in the […]

In North Carolina, the achievement gap between economically disadvantaged students and their wealthier peers is about 30 percentage points,[1] and the graduation gap between these two groups is more than 11 percentage points.[2] Before I was a lawyer or a legislator, I fought this reality firsthand as a Teach For America teacher. My experience working […]

Early in my career as a teacher and principal, I learned I should make all of my decisions based on what was in the best interest of the children we served, and not necessarily what the adults wanted. I am deeply concerned that the “Opportunity Scholarship Act,” or private school voucher bill, fails to meet […]

The brown-headed nuthatch is one of our own, a permanent resident of the Southeast. They don’t care to visit the Caribbean in winter, and they rarely stray above the Mason-Dixon Line. They make their living in our piney woods. Until recently, it was assumed they required a stand of old-growth pines, but Davidson College Professor […]

Starting with the 2014-15 academic year, North Carolina’s Opportunity Scholarship Act will offer a $4,200 voucher to pay for low-income children in public schools to attend private schools. The legislation, which the N.C. General Assembly passed in July 2013, captures two contentious topics in the state: school choice and the idea of using public dollars […]

As hundreds of apartments pop up around transit stations in Charlotte’s South End neighborhood near uptown, the city’s plan for more high-density housing near its young rail line is beginning to take shape. But a sister policy encouraging apartments for low-income families isn’t faring as well. In the six years since the Lynx Blue Line […]