Articles About Environment and Planning

Cemeteries are popping up in yards across our region. Ghosts and skeletons dangle from nearby trees. Zombies claw their way back to the surface of the earth, refusing to rest in peace. My sister and her kids place their graveyard, Eerie Acres, in a low spot along the driveway where fog often settles in fall. […]

When Allen Nelson moved to Charlotte’s Commonwealth-Morningside neighborhood in 2007, he was drawn to the area’s bungalow-style homes, the graceful, mature shade trees and the tucked-away location so close to downtown. But in Nelson’s view, Commonwealth has some of the same problems of many Charlotte neighborhoods – overflowing trash bins, energy-leaking older homes, a scattershot […]

Downtown Salisbury has been named one of “10 Great Neighborhoods” for 2012 by the American Planning Association through its program, Great Places in America. APA’s flagship program celebrates places of exemplary character, quality, and planning. The only other Southern cities honored were Memphis and Baton Rouge, La. Joe Morris, Salisbury’s director of community planning services, […]

So, how did it go? When I thought about it the next day, it all felt like a dream. I had – with plenty of help – organized Charlotte’s second PARK(ing) Day event in recent memory. The first, also created by UNC Charlotte students, was in 2008 in an uptown parking lot. This year’s was […]

We talk quite a bit in the conservation community about invasive species and the threats they pose to habitats and ecosystems.We have to deal with invasive species on conserved lands, typically invasive plants like kudzu and privet, which can spread rapidly and choke out native vegetation. However, other invasives have had an even broader impact […]

By the mid-1960s, the U.S. had become sensitized to the environmental damage caused by harmful human practices, particularly the use of pesticides and DDT, following Rachel Carson’s 1962 pivotal book on this issue, Silent Spring. Carson was an eminent biologist, ecologist, and writer at a time when women in the fields of science and research […]

In the Western United States, fire season generally runs from April to September. This year has seen historic fires. The largest wildfire on record in New Mexico started in the Gila National Forest in May, eventually growing to nearly 300,000 acres. A record heat wave in June helped spur the Waldo Canyon fire, Colorado’s most […]

Just a few hours before he would give the biggest speech of his career at the Democratic National Convention, Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx was using his expanding political capital to pitch a group of community and business leaders on the merits of political consolidation between the City of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County. His proposal to […]

Who doesn’t prefer a park to asphalt or concrete? What would you rather see, a parking place, or a park? That’s the impulse at the heart of International PARK(ing) Day. The yearly event has artists and other citizens transforming parking spaces – temporarily – into more people-friendly places. The event began in 2005 when workers […]

Developer Daniel Levine – who with his father, Al Levine, and uncle Leon Levine together own some 23 acres of prime First Ward Property – has become a key player for the future of uptown development. Until now, he hasn’t developed much, keeping the land as parking lots. But that’s changing. Levine has partnered with […]

Hiking the ridgelines and hillsides of the Uwharries, you pass through forests dominated by hickory, oak and sourwood. There are large patches of knee-high blueberry bushes, and the herbaceous layer is sparse. On occasion, an attentive and adventurous outdoor enthusiast might also run across natural areas that change abruptly and appear remarkably different from this […]

While walking on my grandparents’ property last week, I was fortunate to stumble upon one of the most common and understated orchids in bloom – the Crane-fly orchid (Tipularia discolor). We typically think of orchids as something rare and eye-catching, with vibrant colors that stand out vividly from a woodland backdrop. The Crane-fly orchid, however, […]