Articles About Environment and Planning
I’ve never thought of a loblolly plantation as a bona fide forest. The rows of neatly spaced and stalky trees seem more akin to a long-rotation corn crop. In most pine plantations, trees are thinned in 15 years, and the rest are harvested at 30. Like other agricultural land, pine plantations provide open space, but […]
Although a hard word to pronounce, “gentian” is a group of pretty flowers that are found all over the world, on all continents except Antarctica. There are more than 1,000 species of gentian worldwide, and gentians are found in a wide variety of habitats, from rainforest to desert. In this area, gentians are typically found […]
A rare joy in Charlotte is being able to live a compact, transit-supported lifestyle, where soul-sapping commuter journeys on interstates or arterial highways can be avoided. My wife, Linda, and I have worked hard to craft such a lifestyle, “aging in place” in Dilworth, where almost everything we need is within a mile of our […]
It took years, multiple political strategies, a bond vote, patience, weathering a brutal and ongoing economic downturn, more patience, and – finally – a multimedia event under a tent on a hot asphalt parking lot. But last Friday, ground was broken for a new park in uptown Charlotte: Romare Bearden Park. It’s notable for many […]
This time of year, I’m trying to get my fill of fresh tomatoes from the farmers market and my parents’ garden in the Uwharries. As fall approaches, I start to crave heartier food and switch to recipes that call for canned tomatoes. I rarely buy fresh tomatoes out of season, but when I’m eating out, […]
Despite recent rains, the Uwharries have experienced abnormally dry to moderate drought conditions for much of the summer. This isn’t unusual for our region. According to the N.C. Drought Management Advisory Council, our conditions ranged from abnormally dry to extreme drought in four of the past five summers. Days in the upper 90s and weeks […]
Have you wondered whether bees in our area are suffering from colony collapse disorder? Do you know what fly fishing’s aquatic insects can tell us about water quality? Entomologists (insect scientists) are no longer the only people watching bugs. Like many branches of natural science, entomology has reached out to citizen scientists for help in […]
Just for fun, before watching Monday night’s Charlotte City Council hearing on the newest plan for downtown Charlotte, I hauled out my yellowing copy of the 1966 Odell Plan. (See original drawings from the plan here.) It’s both fun and humbling to see how stunningly wrong that plan was about so much. Then I thumbed […]
Charlotte’s draft 2020 Vision Plan is a disappointing document. Despite the hard work, the glossy graphics are mostly pretty pictures of conventional thinking rather than visions for a different future. A plan promoted as visionary should acknowledge that urgent environmental and economic forces demand challenging changes to the status quo, and then propose far-reaching and […]
A peach display in the grocery store might mention where the fruit was grown. Too often, that means Georgia or California. At a farm stand in the Sandhills, the peaches come from an orchard right here on the edge of the Uwharries. Growers even note the specific variety. After writing about the Ophir apple last […]
Last week while surveying one of our properties, a natural heritage field biologist found an interesting species never before documented this far south – the eastern gray tree frog (Hyla versicolor). The gray tree frog found widely across the state is the Cope’s gray tree frog (Hyla chrysoscelis). The eastern gray tree frog was documented […]
Fruits and vegetables that taste like summer—tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, blueberries, raspberries, melons—are swelling and ripening in gardens and farms of our region. These crops would be far less abundant without the buzzing chorus of pollinating insects that provide their services for free. Commercial honey bee and bumble bee operations make good use of the industrious […]