PLANNING

[highlightrule]Unless local governments change transportation strategies, new traffic from rideshare companies will just mean gridlock.[/highlightrule] If you’ve used Uber or Lyft lately, you’re not alone. By the end of 2018, the total number of for-hire car rides, including conventional taxi trips and trips with services like Uber and Lyft, will approach 4.74 billion, surpassing total […]

It isn’t just luxury condos and apartments rushing to claim space in booming uptown Charlotte. Self-storage facilities featuring sleek, multistory designs, special lighting and retail shops are trying to get a spot too. Beyond the city center, self-storage companies are rushing to catch up with the Charlotte region’s fast-growing population. They are building or have […]

Most city plans get input from residents, but if you’ve attended many city planning public meetings, you might notice the crowds tend to be a bit on the not-young side. It’s conventional wisdom that people are more likely to become interested in civic engagement when they buy property or have kids – not things many […]

Charlotte’s planning director, on the job since January, is recommending the zoning rewrite process underway pause for what he calls a “reset.” During that time, he says, the city should spend 15 to 18 months to engage in a wide-ranging community effort to produce a new vision plan for the city. “It took me a […]

If you pay attention to Charlotte growth topics, you may have heard some unfamiliar words recently: Place Types. UDO. If you’re not a planner or a developer, or even if you are, those terms may baffle you. We hope what follows can help you sort out what it all means. Why now? The City of […]

As Raleigh’s chief planning and development officer for nearly a decade, Mitchell Silver oversaw the rules that shaped development in that fast-growing city. Silver, president of the American Planning Association 2011-2013, will talk Thursday in Charlotte about the importance of having a vision, and what must happen after that vision is created. The event is […]

If you drove down Belmont Avenue during one weekend in late September, you might have seen people in orange vests painting chairs, tables, kiosks – even crosswalks. They had come out to begin the transformation of Belmont Avenue. Community members, project leaders and employees of the nonprofit Better Block Foundation had come together to create […]

Writing about Vauban, Germany, the renowned eco-district just inside the Freiburg city limits, has been on my wish list for several years, ever since my self-guided tour of trend-setting European models. I was eager to see this famed quartier, formerly a French army encampment, where roof-top solar panels abound, heating bills are astonishingly low, and […]

[highlightrule]“Typically, people look at abstract ideas and overwhelming macro-issues like poverty and homelessness. Often missed is the opportunity to tackle low-hanging fruit like sidewalks or improved lighting.” — Jason Roberts[/highlightrule] Sometimes, to build a better city – a city built for residents, not for cars or absentee landlords or development financiers – you start with […]

In addition to studying how to accommodate growing ethnic diversity – needed in many cities, not just Houston and Charlotte – there’s another lesson Houston might hold for Charlotte: Finding the money to build out an ambitious greenway plan. They call them bayous. We call them creeks. But both Houston and Charlotte have a number […]