Articles About Environment and Planning
For vegetable gardeners in the Piedmont, 2018 was a challenging year. The weather whipsawed between mundane and extreme. January started with a blast of bitter cold. Temperatures dipped into the single digits, something we don’t experience every winter. I was so intimidated by the forecast, I didn’t even bother to cover my tiny front-yard food […]
The subtitle of Donald Seriff’s Birds of the Central Carolinas says a lot about its scope and ambition: Including Ornithological Records and Firsthand Accounts from the Civil War Era to Today. This book aspires to be much more than just another field guide. It’s a longitudinal documentation of avian life in the Piedmont, a region […]
“Change is the law of life and those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.” – John F. Kennedy As the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute prepares to celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2019, we are reflecting on how our history and growth mirror both the region we focus […]
There are three things most Charlotteans seem to agree on: a victory streak for the Panthers, a cool brew at a neighborhood brewpub, and free (or mostly free) parking. But with the surge of new and promising technologies and platforms in recent years – Uber, Lyft, autonomous cars, dockless bike sharing, and even electric scooters […]
In August, “it becomes apparent that porcelain berry (Ampelopsis brevipedunculata) is making a bold attempt at taking over the world.” This witty observation from the Virginia Native Plant Society no longer strikes me as hyperbole. In all my years of conservation work in the Uwharries, I don’t believe I’ve ever encountered porcelain berry in anyone’s […]
Tall and slender even into his 70s, Haywood Rankin claims he was never much of an athlete. He says he lacked the speed and agility needed for football or basketball and the hand-eye coordination for baseball or tennis. After college, he spent time in Oxford, England, and finally found a sport that fit his skill […]
On Father’s Day, my sister and I honored the finest man in the Uwharries and beyond, and also a remarkable barn owl named Harvey. According to the Carolina Raptor Center, the lifespan of a barn owl (Tyto alba) in the wild is generally only two to five years. They can easily live twice as long […]
A long-range game plan to dramatically reduce Charlotte’s greenhouse gas footprint has been an on-again, off-again priority since 2007. That’s when Charlotte City Council adopted its first greenhouse gas emission reduction resolution. And now, after a lapse of 11 years, it’s on again. In one of his first initiatives as newly elected mayor in 2009, […]
I recently stumbled on an especially interesting habitat while exploring the flora and fauna on a site that once held granite quarries. I was with Crystal Cockman from the LandTrust for Central North Carolina and Nell Allen from the North Carolina Zoo. Today trees and luscious foliage cover the property just east of Salisbury. But […]
I saw it coming. I knew the tree was going to die, sooner rather than later, but I didn’t do anything to save it. Every time I saw the cable wrapped around that oak, I’d throw up my hands and think, “Too late now!” (A phrase made famous in our family by my husband’s father, […]
It isn’t just luxury condos and apartments rushing to claim space in booming uptown Charlotte. Self-storage facilities featuring sleek, multistory designs, special lighting and retail shops are trying to get a spot too. Beyond the city center, self-storage companies are rushing to catch up with the Charlotte region’s fast-growing population. They are building or have […]
We were less than a week into spring. The weather was cold and gray, but the landscape in my Charlotte neighborhood was Technicolor – emerald lawns, sunny daffodils, pastel phlox, Yoshino cherries and redbuds. Oddly, my eye was drawn to the drab trunk of a single willow oak, one of many lining the streets. About […]