General News

Backyard bogs and wetland gardens

After months of steady – and sometimes excessive – rain, we’ve recently seen a more typical pattern of precipitation. Autumn is our driest season. If this trend continues and we don’t receive a soaking from a hurricane or tropical storm, our total precipitation for 2013 could be deceptively average. It’s been a banner year for […]

Gastonia working to lure artists downtown

An artists’ colony in downtown Gastonia? Sounds far-fetched. But after studies, surveys and a yearlong fundraising campaign, it’s getting closer to reality. In May, the Community Foundation of Gaston County signed a pre-development contract with Artspace, a Minneapolis nonprofit that builds and maintains affordable live-work units for artists, to build a project in Gastonia by […]

Institute for Social Capital newsletter, October 2013

Categories: General News Tags: Social Capital

Upcoming events: ISC will present at the Actionable Intelligence for Social Policy (AISP) 2013 Conference: Demonstrated Uses of Integrated Data Systems, November 4-5, 2013, in Washington. Amy Hawn Nelson, director of ISC, will convene a panel at the American Evaluation Association (AEA) Conference, October 17, 2013, in Washington, which addresses “Are United Ways Doing Any […]

Don’t sweat our native bees

There was that glorious day toward the end of August when the humidity dropped and the heavens parted. The air felt fresh for the first time in months. I knew it wouldn’t last – we were bound to have another spell of muggy weather before the start of autumn – but I convinced myself the […]

Do city grants go to areas most in need?

When Joe Howarth started working with UNC Charlotte’s Charlotte Action Research Project in Charlotte’s most disadvantaged neighborhoods in 2011, he kept hearing about the City of Charlotte’s Neighborhood Matching Grant program. The city program is designed to help neighborhoods with low to moderate resources improve their neighborhoods through grants for beautification projects and educational, public […]

Halloween hike and ghost stories in the Uwharries

The Uwharrie Mountains are home to numerous legends and ghost stories passed down through the generations. An upcoming hike and storytelling event will take you into these mountains for an evening filled with legends and ghost tales. About the event Click here or scroll below for details of the hike and storytelling event. Author Fred […]

How smart is your city, really?

TORONTO – Maybe the game-changer is 3-D printing. Or maybe it’s robotic cars and “autonomous driving,” an innovation that may well mean we’ll never again have to learn to parallel park. Maybe it’s “the Internet of everything” – the idea that sooner or later almost everything will be connected via the Internet. It’s obvious big […]

Asphalt for cars or a place for people?

One lucky parking spot in NoDa gets to become a park for eight hours this Friday. From 1 p.m. to 9 p.m. volunteers will transform a space on North Davidson Street into a place for many people, instead of a place for one car. In doing so, they’ll make sure Charlotte once again joins an […]

Ordinance could limit what you toss into trash

Mecklenburg County is considering ordinance changes that could require residents to recycle plastics, aluminum cans, yard waste and paper. It would be up to the county’s municipalities whether to adopt the changes, and each municipality would be responsible for enforcement – although civil fines of up to $100 could be possible if residents put too […]

Charlotte-area residents invited to chart the region’s future

Charlotte-area residents will have an additional opportunity to voice their opinion on the region’s growth. The Centralina Council of Governments added a fourth Mecklenburg County workshop, and a second location, to the “CONNECT Our Future” planning program at 5:30 p.m. Oct. 24 at Mahlon Adams Pavilion in Freedom Park. The public workshop is one of […]