DEVELOPMENT

You can add the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning Commission to the local voices expressing concern about development moving rapidly as the city’s process to rewrite its aging zoning code moves far slower. At its monthly work session Monday, members of the planning commission spent several minutes discussing what some see as rising community concern over new developments […]

A proposal working its way through the city zoning process could create something new for Charlotte: a special kind of zoning designed specifically for one neighborhood. The proposed Gold District would give a section of the larger South End area its own zoning standards, tailored to what businesses and property owners in the area say […]

The following is an edited version of a talk I gave Sept. 23 to a gathering of folks concerned about changes in the Plaza Midwood neighborhood. The event was organized by the group Plaza Midwood Shows Up in cooperation with the Plaza Midwood Neighborhood Association and the Charlotte section of the American Institute of Architects. […]

[highlightrule] “We mourn the small stores lost and the neighborhood neutered, even as we recognize that cities depend for their future on new ways of selling and buying and living. Cities often produce whatever the next wave of social change is going to be, and then violently reject it for altering the nature of the […]

Charlotte isn’t unique in the country in wanting to create more mixed-use development. As in many cities, leaders in Charlotte see advantages to encouraging the kinds of neighborhoods where homes, stores and workplaces are close to each other. It’s a more efficient use of land, can reduce infrastructure costs and traffic congestion, and can make […]

[highlightrule] Charlotte’s strong urban planning is torpedoed by weak urban design. To change that, the city needs a new type of zoning ordinance.[/highlightrule] Add together Charlotte’s apartment boom plus the reinvention of urban districts such as South End, Plaza-Central and NoDa, and you come up with a lot of questions. Residents complain about the neighborhoods’ […]

When New Orleans flooded 10 years ago last month, it looked to many people in America as though the city could never recover. Today, when the word “resilience” dots virtually every scrap of writing on urban policy around the globe, New Orleans provides iconographic proof that a city is, in fact, a hard thing to […]

[highlightrule]As an important block on Camden Road faces likely development, its recent history tells a complex narrative of a once-derelict area and a man with a vision, and shows how success changes a neighborhood.[/highlightrule] Recent news that one of the last remaining sites in Charlotte’s South End is scheduled for high-density redevelopment should come as […]

Three months ago my family and I moved into our first home. Something about buying a house makes you feel like a bona fide adult, and with that come adult decisions. When my husband and I were deciding where in the city we wanted to live, like many young families we fell into the trap […]

Two weeks ago I beamed with pride for Charlotte as U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx and Mayor Dan Clodfelter cut the ribbon to begin the CityLynx Gold Line streetcar service. I’ve lived in and visited cities with streetcar lines and often longed for an America where tracks once again crisscross our cities. The past can […]