Articles About the Economy
Bill Graves and Jeff Michael served as co-principal investigators for the Carolinas Urban-Rural Connection project. Dr. Graves is Associate Professor and a J.H. Biggs Faculty Fellow in the UNC Charlotte Department of Geography & Earth Sciences. Michael is Director of the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute. Two years ago, we set off on a journey to […]
The Charlotte region rose to prosperity on the strength of ties between its rural areas and urban center, but those ties have frayed in recent decades, with the decline of the textile industry and Charlotte’s emergence as an independent finance center. The first annual Schul Forum Series, hosted by the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute, will […]
“A bus ticket and a bologna sandwich.” That’s a colloquial interpretation of the solution many economists suggest for addressing economic challenges in rural areas – move to a city where there’s more opportunity. While this school of thought acknowledges barriers that can make it difficult to relocate – education levels, job skills, housing costs – […]
The city of Charlotte has a long reach. While this is certainly not a surprise, we don’t really know much about how Charlotte influences its surroundings and how far this reach extends. We do have some conventions to help us understand the extent to which our region is connected. Metropolitan areas are commonly used to […]
From an agrarian system to an economy based on rural mills and factories drawing workers from former farms and sending goods to Charlotte for distribution, the region undergoes rapid change.
A growing web of infrastructure and physical connections – both within the wider region and between the region and the outside world – has had a profound effect on where growth went, and where it stayed away from. People and industries in the Carolinas Urban-Rural Connection study area followed trading paths, railroads, highways and, now, air service.
Common rush (Juncus effusus) is often used in riparian restoration projects. It provides cover for wildlife and helps stabilize soil and filter stormwater runoff, and it can be found throughout the Uwharries. Jim Matthews, professor emeritus at UNC Charlotte and founder of Habitat Assessment and Restoration Professionals, calls it the “Cadillac of wetland plants” because it can grow in standing water but also tolerate dry spells.
“The farmer is the only man in our economy who buys everything at retail, sells everything at wholesale, and pays the freight both ways.” President John F. Kennedy To say that agriculture is important in North Carolina would be an obvious understatement. Agriculture and agribusiness, including food, forestry, and fiber, is the number one industry […]
With Charlotte’s population growing by dozens of people a day, planners, politicians and many residents agree that denser development is inevitable in the city’s future. But just how dense – and exactly where to build that extra density – remain thorny questions, especially when denser developments are proposed in single-family neighborhoods. The tension between wanting […]
Nearly five years ago, Amber Lineback bought a bungalow in Charlotte’s Plaza Midwood neighborhood not only to enjoy the eclectic community and its proximity to Uptown, but as a place where her parents might one day live too. She built a garage with a second-floor furnished one-bedroom apartment, featuring a full kitchen, washer, dryer and […]
Recently released U.S. Census figures show continuing growth in almost all the towns and cities in the Charlotte region, and one factor driving growth appears to be proximity to Charlotte and Mecklenburg County. The Census numbers show Charlotte continues to be one of the nation’s fastest-growing large cities. The Census population estimate for 2017, released […]
Charlotte-Mecklenburg residents may be growing weary of the stagnated state of the economy, the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute’s Annual Survey showed. For more than 30 years the institute has produced an annual survey of Mecklenburg County, primarily with questions from clients such as nonprofit agencies and local governments. But each year the institute includes a […]