A study released this week by the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute sheds light on the unique challenges minority-owned small businesses face and how the Charlotte-Mecklenburg community can better support these enterprises, which are key to community well-being and wealth-building.
Defined as businesses with fewer than 500...
Read moreDoes where you live — and what jobs you have access to — influence whether you work, and how much you earn?
The long-held “spatial mismatch” theory posits that inner city unemployment and poverty has been driven in large part by the increasing physical separation of inner city residents from job opportunities, as suburbs boomed and employers dispersed away from urban cores. As Black...
Read moreFor decades, the single-family home rental market was a small-scale industry, made up almost entirely of local landlords who rented out a few houses they bought as investment properties, or perhaps inherited, or held on to after relocating.
But the years since the Great Recession have witnessed a dramatic shift, as Wall Street-backed rental companies moved in to...
Read moreHow does the ability to move around our city influence one’s ability to move up the economic ladder?
That was the topic of our second Schul Conversation, a virtual discussion series bringing together experts to discuss different aspects of economic mobility in our region. The panel featured Charlotte’s Assistant City Manager Taiwo Jaiyeoba, UNC Charlotte professor Dr...
Read moreThe UNC Charlotte Urban Institute, with support from The Gambrell Foundation, is now accepting applications for the next cohort of faculty fellows to study issues around economic mobility in the Charlotte region. The program will fund five projects this year, up to $15,000 each.
Read moreWith straw votes on the controversial elements and the final adoption of Charlotte’s new vision plan looming in the next month, there’s a sense that the city’s reaching a finale in the years-long process of rewriting its development rules.
But adopting the vision plan might end up – surprisingly – being one of the easier parts of the whole process. That’s because after Charlotte City...
Read moreNot that long ago, a few aging blocks in a declining, working-class neighborhood revived from the dust and grit of the textile mill era as Charlotte’s home-grown arts district. By the mid-1990s, galleries and off-beat music venues replaced empty storefronts. Nightlife began to flourish, and the acronym "NoDa" took hold, affirming a new identity.
Read moreGroundswells are a series of waves formed by storm systems off the coast, so-named because the energy from their waves reaches the floor of the ocean at a thousand foot depths. By the time the waves of a groundswell reach shore, the interplay between the ocean surface and floor has built energy and momentum. Unlike wind swells that result in shallow, choppy waves and tsunamis that result in a...
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