Maps

[title_1]
The Quality of Life Explorer: Big Value for Local Government
   April 20, 2023

Andrew Bowen, City of Charlotte

The Charlotte Mecklenburg Quality of Life Explorer is a tool that provides incredible value to our local governments, especially the City of Charlotte. At its core, it is a single location that provides consistent, reliable, and up-to-...

Read more


[title_1]
Quality of Life Explorer Timeline
   April 20, 2023
Katie Zager

Although we are celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Quality of Life Explorer, the history of Quality of Life in Charlotte actually goes back more than 25 years. Below is a brief timeline of the development of the Quality of Life...

Read more


[title_1]
The Quality of Life Explorer: 10 years and Counting
   April 5, 2023
Katie Zager

Editor’s Note: We're celebrating 10 years of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Quality of Life Explorer. 
 

The...

Read more


[title_1]
Quality of Life Explorer: Making data intelligible and available for journalists (like me!) who aren’t PhDs
   April 5, 2023
Ely Portillo
Ely Portillo, WFAE

What neighborhoods in Charlotte have a high share of renter...

Read more


[title_1]
Explore new data about Charlotte via interactive maps
   August 22, 2022
Ely Portillo

The Quality of Life Explorer — Charlotte-Mecklenburg's source for more than 80 interactively mapped variables about the economy, environment, demographics and more — has been updated with new information allowing you to explore our community. 

Maps that rely on data from the U.S. Census' American Community Survey are now up-to-date. This...

Read more


[title_1]
Who you befriend affects your economic mobility
   August 1, 2022
Ely Portillo

When it comes to economic mobility – low-income children’s ability to rise from poverty – we’ve known for a while that where you live influences your chances of success. Now, a new study suggests it’s not just where you live, but who you know that can tip the odds.

A vast new project...

Read more


[title_1]
Mapping unequal health care access in Charlotte
   April 18, 2022

Mary Louise Orr Wilson, Malia Suhren, Margaret Phipps

Your access to medicine, lifesaving COVID-19 vaccines and other pharmacy services might depend on what part of town you live in. 

The Urban Institute recently updated the Quality of Life Explorer data maps to include several new metrics, one of which is particularly relevant as we enter year three of the global pandemic. “Proximity to a pharmacy,” ...

Read more


[title_1]
Explore local housing data with new interactive maps
   April 4, 2022
Ely Portillo

We often paint Charlotte’s housing market in broad strokes: rising prices, bidding wars and gentrification reshaping neighborhoods.

Updated data on the Charlotte/Mecklenburg Quality of Life Explorer lets you can dig deeper into the story told by those aggregate numbers. Charlotte’s neighborhoods are starkly different when it comes to...

Read more


[title_1]
Explore everything from residential segregation to how much trash you generate with new maps
   December 15, 2021
Ely Portillo

Which parts of Charlotte use the most water? Where is our growth eating up whatever vacant land is left in Mecklenburg County? Where are the racial, economic and other dividing lines that crisscross our community?

You can answer these questions and more with the updated Quality of Life Explorer maps published online today. A joint venture between...

Read more


[title_1]
New maps let you explore patterns of income, racial segregation and more
   September 20, 2021
Ely Portillo

Where you live in Charlotte and Mecklenburg County might reflect your race, income, education level, how old you are and even how likely you are to be in an area where eligible streams are adopted for clean-up. 

Newly updated maps from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Quality of Life Explorer let...

Read more