City Walks-Janes Walks
Are bus-only lanes a key part of Charlotte’s transit future?
This story is part of the Transit Time newsletter, a partnership between the Urban Institute, the Charlotte Ledger and WFAE. Find out more and subscribe here. For six months, commuters and residents near Central Avenue in east Charlotte faced an unfamiliar sight: “BUS ONLY” emblazoned on one general-purpose lane in each direction, in the city’s […]
Charlotte’s nowhere near the finish line for its development rules rewrite
With 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 […]
Brush up on your Charlotte trivia (while closing your rings) with these City Walks
The Charlotte Observer
Building History: Inside Urban Institutes’ City Walks
Charlotte Magazine
Single-family zoning is still the crux of Charlotte’s 2040 plan debate
In the months since opposition to Charlotte’s new 2040 Comprehensive Vision Plan started building, staff and City Council have held forums, rehashed the plan in committee meetings, responded to hundreds of public comments and started tinkering with how to modify rules about what can be built where. But the heart of the matter, and the […]
Urban Institute director named Deputy Secretary for Natural Resources
Jeff Michael, who has served as director of the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute for nearly two decades, is leaving that position to become North Carolina’s next Deputy Secretary for Natural Resources. N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources Secretary Reid Wilson announced the appointment Wednesday. Michael has led the Urban Institute for 18 years, which […]
Report: Charlotte’s streets are dangerous for pedestrians
It’s increasingly dangerous for people to walk in the Charlotte area, according to a new, annual report – a trend that’s mirrored in almost every city nationwide. “Dangerous by Design,” published by Smart Growth America, uses federal data to rank metro areas by pedestrian fatalities. The Charlotte region ranked as the 34th most dangerous metro […]
Mobilizing for climate change: Evaluating the Strategic Energy Action Plan, two years in
Contributing writer Martin Zimmerman interviews Sarah Hazel, recently appointed as Chief Sustainability & Resiliency Officer for the city of Charlotte. Sarah Hazel comes to the Strategic Energy Action Plan team from a six-year tenure on the city manager’s staff, where she worked on a wide range of initiatives including SEAP program development. She now manages […]
2020 was supposed to be ‘year of the plan.’ What happened?
Back in late 2019 – before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down much of the world – it looked like 2020 would be the year for plans to guide our community’s growth for the next several decades would coalesce. What happened? Well, the pandemic, of course. But a couple of key plans have also run into […]