Articles About Environment and Planning
As a planner, I’ve found most communities open to making concessions to pedestrians and cyclists in their transportation plans, a goal generally phrased as “providing transportation choices.” There’s an underlying assumption that transportation networks are for cars and trucks, and accommodating anything else is just for variety. For example, Charlotte’s Transportation Action Plan includes a […]
In honor of our second anniversary, PlanCharlotte.org is asking readers to nominate spots in the Charlotte region that need a design makeover. (See our first installment in this series here and our second installment here. Urban designers Keihly Moore and Alex Borisenko have launched a website, www.completeblocks.com, where they’re proposing a series of urban design […]
In the Uwharries, raptors make their presence known in late winter and early spring. A lone female northern harrier has spent the winter skimming our fields of native warm season grass. I’ve come to wonder if she’s the same one who shows up every fall, who chased away another pair of harriers who tried to […]
Envision this: A man draped in a cape, brandishing a gold-tipped cane, strolls through a 79-acre[1], 16-block chunk of South End. He’s costumed as the colorful Count Chevalier Vincent de Rivafinoli, an Italian gold-digger (literally) who swept into town during Charlotte’s early 19th-century gold rush, settled in a house at South Tryon and West Morehead […]
When you get right down to it, any city or town is built of neighborhoods – block by block and street by street. That formula is part of the magic behind the idea of Jane’s Walks, an international movement that encourages people to get out for a neighborhood walk on the first weekend in May. […]
In honor of our second anniversary, PlanCharlotte.org is asking readers to nominate spots in the Charlotte region that need a design makeover. (See last week’s article, the first installment in this series, by clicking here.) Urban designers Keihly Moore and Alex Borisenko have launched a website, www.completeblocks.com, where they’re proposing a series of urban design […]
Although bear sightings in the Piedmont are not uncommon, the bears are usually just passing through. However, black bears are gradually expanding their habitat into the Piedmont region, and their range now extends over 60 percent of North Carolina. Though historically they were found across the state, black bears had very low population numbers in […]
A recent Supreme Court decision has some trail advocates worried about the fate of the national rails-to-trails program, but the ruling is unlikely to affect North Carolina. The case, Brandt Revocable Trust v. United States, has to do with who retains the property rights to abandoned railroad right of ways. The national Rails-to-Trails Conservancy and […]
Imagine a spot in your city or town that you think needs a makeover – only instead of adding a new haircut and stylish clothes, you add trees, sidewalk cafes, bicycle lanes or parks. PlanCharlotte, with urban designers Keihly Moore and Alex Borisenko, invites you, the public, to nominate places in the Charlotte region that […]
When my niece and nephew were younger, they had large, shallow pans to take along on trips to the Low Water Bridge. Wading and skipping rocks were favorite pastimes on this picturesque section of the Uwharrie River, but on occasion they would also pan for gold. Grandpa provided the labor, shoveling pebbles and sediment into […]
As runners and bikers flocked to Mecklenburg County’s 37-miles of greenway on the first warm weekend of the year, few thought about what goes into building those creek-side asphalt paths. Building paved greenways takes lots of two things – time and money. Planning, capital budgeting, engineering and environmental studies and, finally, construction can take a […]
Last summer, LandTrust of Central North Carolina staff, interns, and friends participated in the first backpacking thru hike of the full Uwharrie Recreational Trail. Thanks to more than 15 years of conservation work, this trail can now be hiked in its 40-mile entirety. We got such positive response from our first thru hike, that we […]