Neighborhood

Wilmore resident Kris Steele knew his neighborhood was a food desert, an area with little access to fresh food. But it didn’t hit him what that meant until he saw neighborhood kids streaming in and out of the corner convenience store carrying bags of candy. To get there, the kids walked past a rusting chain-link […]

A 10-foot-wide asphalt path that officially opened Tuesday offers a glimpse of what could be a more pedestrian- and bike-oriented future for some of Charlotte’s least pedestrian-friendly thoroughfares. The path, 0.9 miles along University City Boulevard from Mallard Creek Church Road to UNC Charlotte’s main entrance at Broadrick Boulevard, is the first bike-ped trail along […]

When you hear that a new book “opens my eyes to an entirely new way of thinking,” as “Better! Cities & Towns” editor Rob Steuteville wrote, you may want to pay attention. Dead End: Suburban Sprawl and the Rebirth of American Urbanism, by Benjamin Ross (Oxford University Press, 2014) has the potential to change the […]

When we turned from Mayflower Road onto Hendren Avenue, it hit me. This Revolution Park neighborhood in west Charlotte was a dead ringer for the neighborhood in southeast Charlotte where I bought a tiny house when I first moved to town three decades ago. That neighborhood, Chantilly, built in the 1940s, has now gone upscale, […]

Where there once were weeds, there is now a farm field, planted in potatoes, broccoli and greens. Where there once was a defunct greenhouse, there are now floating trays bursting with lettuce, fed by water circulating through a tank of tilapia. A year has passed since Friendship Gardens’ Henry Owen and his team of enthusiastic […]

When you hear “Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night … ” you probably think of the U.S. Postal Service. But if you found yourself around Plaza Midwood on one of this past winter’s cold and snowy Tuesday nights, you may well associate that phrase with something else: hardy bicyclists pedaling despite […]

From Hyde Park to Sheffield Park to Madison Park, plenty of Charlotte-area neighborhoods are filled with people who love where they live. Now, they have an opportunity to show the world what’s remarkable about their neighborhoods. Learn more Want to lead a walk? Some tips Read about previous years’ walks: In Jane Jacobs’ footsteps, exploring […]

When you get right down to it, any city or town is built of neighborhoods – block by block and street by street. That formula is part of the magic behind the idea of Jane’s Walks, an international movement that encourages people to get out for a neighborhood walk on the first weekend in May. […]

We know North Carolina is filled with great places: both natural landscapes and cultural and historic treasures, from main streets to parks to neighborhoods. Here’s your chance to suggest places that deserve public recognition and celebration. The N.C. Chapter of the American Planning Association wants nominations from the public for Great Main Street and Great […]

Whether you want to look up data or understand an issue or trend affecting the Charlotte region, the online resources of the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute are available to help you. There are also many other programs on campus that work with local groups. The institute offers articles and data on a range of issues […]