Articles About Environment and Planning
Update: This survey has closed. The UNC Charlotte Urban Institute is helping Mecklenburg County’s Land Use and Environmental Services Agency (LUESA) learn about county residents’ recycling practices and preferences. The institute has worked with LUESA on an annual phone survey for 11 years. This is the first year in which an online component has been […]
According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, North Carolina ranks third in the nation in the amount of installed solar capacity, more than all other Southeastern states combined. At last count, 188 solar companies employed 6,000 people in our state. As a recent article in the Montgomery Herald noted, there’s now a 25-megawatt solar farm […]
A stop by the Eldorado Outpost one recent morning included a sighting of a barn swallow that had built a nest on a ledge of the building under the eave. Barn swallows (Hirundo rustica) are fairly common, and you’ve probably seen them on your own property. A couple of years ago, kayaking on Mountain Creek, […]
Two years ago, over Memorial Day weekend, I witnessed a phenomenon in the Uwharries that has proven difficult to explain. I stepped out of the house after dinner and looked toward the grove of majestic oaks surrounded by our fields of native warm season grass. Thousands of lights were flashing in the canopy. It was […]
Is Jim Garges, Mecklenburg County’s normally ebullient director of parks and recreation, fretting right now? He might be, and for much the same reasons that Janette Sadik-Khan worried eight years ago as commissioner of the massive New York City Department of Transportation. For Sadik-Khan, the summer of 2008 was when her staff decided to gamble. […]
Are you new to North Carolina and looking to discover one of the state’s great main streets? Or are you a life-long resident searching for a new place to explore? Or do you want other North Carolinians to know about the great places in your town? Welcome to the fifth annual Great Places in NC […]
[highlightrule]You probably know places you like. And you probably don’t know whether they’re MUDD-O, R-22MF or UR-2(CD). A new approach to zoning lets us envision places we like and then come up with ordinances that allow us to build them—without the arcane sets of letters and formulas.[/highlightrule] If I described a well-known locale in Charlotte […]
Lurking silently beneath the beauty of Charlotte’s tree canopy is a persistent problem with ailing trees. The issue significantly affects the city’s efforts to preserve and replenish its most treasured amenity. Major challenges include: Tree diseases The stresses of an urban, high-rise environment on uptown street trees The age of the tree canopy, particularly in […]
The trout lilies and trilliums are in full bloom, the turkeys are strutting, the smallmouth are biting, and the butterflies are flitting about in our fields and woodlands. One of the most common butterflies seen in our area is the Eastern tiger swallowtail (Papilio glaucus). Male Eastern tiger swallowtails are yellow with four black tiger […]
Just as trees can improve the air quality in our communities, plants can make the air in our homes and buildings cleaner. UNC Charlotte Associate Professor of Architecture Jefferson Ellinger and his partners at Fresh Air Building Systems have been working for years to develop the AMPS (Active Modular Phytoremediation System), a “probiotic” plant wall […]
[highlightrule]Trees reduce air pollution, improve water quality, save energy costs, reduce storm water runoff and enhance property values. And some would say Charlotte’s tree canopy also shapes the soul of the city.[/highlightrule] In Charlotte, a widespread passion about trees inspires a special sort of community activism, marked by a keen admiration of the beauty of […]
[highlightrule]A little-known registry of Champion Trees includes 15 of Charlotte’s most magnificent trees, bringing more than a title to the Queen City’s crown.[/highlightrule] While civic pride reached heightened levels in Charlotte when the Carolina Panthers made it to Super Bowl 50 as NFC champions, it turns out there is another group of extra large, equally […]