Neighborhood
Do city grants go to areas most in need?
When Joe Howarth started working with UNC Charlotte’s Charlotte Action Research Project in Charlotte’s most disadvantaged neighborhoods in 2011, he kept hearing about the City of Charlotte’s Neighborhood Matching Grant program. The city program is designed to help neighborhoods with low to moderate resources improve their neighborhoods through grants for beautification projects and educational, public […]
Charlotte’s old buildings to get new study
The City of Charlotte will take stock of its historic buildings and neighborhoods over the next few years, thanks to a federal Historic Preservation Fund grant. The $20,000 grant will help the city’s planning department hire a consultant for a comprehensive historic resources survey. The city will pay $30,000 in matching funds. The survey, the […]
Connect your neighborhood with a digital makeover
Does your neighborhood need help creating a website, using social media such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, learning how to send text message alerts or any other digital communications? If so, you might want to take a look at the digital communications workshop Queens University is offering, in partnership with the City of Charlotte. The […]
Will Americans continue to be suburban creatures?
Will Americans continue to be suburban creatures? The question has been widely debated by developers, planners and the press since the Great Recession. Surveys showing preferences for urban, walkable, in-town neighborhoods have been called fads by some, or hailed by others as the end of suburbia. Ultimately, it will be the attitudes of the Millennial […]
Is there a ‘right’ density? One expert says no
Julie Campoli’s new paperback, Made for Walking: Density and Neighborhood Form, is a must read for anyone in and around Charlotte who wants to know what it takes to make good neighborhoods into great ones. The book follows Campoli’s earlier Visualizing Density with photographer Alex S. MacLean; both were published by the Lincoln Institute of […]
Bill to limit local zoning powers: Two views
The N.C. House is scheduled to vote this afternoon on a bill, “Zoning/Design & Aesthetic Controls,” (House Bill 150) that has enthusiastic support from the state’s home-building industry but that gravely concerns planners around the state, as well as some local elected officials. (Update: The N.C. House on Tuesday passed the bill 94-22 on second […]
Art is awesome. Poverty is not.
“Art is awesome, poverty is not.” – The Urban Ministry Center In conjunction with the opening of the photographic exhibit, Favelas: Architecture of Survival, the UNC Charlotte College of Arts + Architecture will hold a reception Friday, with a celebration of Brazilian arts. The event will be 6 to 8 p.m. at the Projective Eye […]
Bill would shut down community choice
In recent years, progressive developers have made an important discovery. If they incorporate design features into their development proposals to make them look and function better, communities will allow them to build more product. But their investment can be fundamentally devalued if communities aren’t allowed to establish basic design standards to ensure a similar quality […]
House Bill 150 deserves our support
The debate over “Zoning/Design & Aesthetic Controls,” (House Bill 150) concerns two basic issues: first, how much control we want government to have over our power of consumer choice, and second, whether we want government in North Carolina to function as its founding fathers intended. Let’s address the latter issue first. To understand why the […]
Charlotte region full of great places
Concord’s Union Street, downtown Belmont and Charlotte’s First Ward and Plaza Midwood neighborhoods have all been nominated for “People’s Choice” awards in this year’s “Great Places in North Carolina” contest. North Carolinians are being asked to vote. Polls are open until March 15. North Carolina residents can vote online by going to www.greatplacesnc.org. At that […]