Quality of Life

Recycling containers sit in classrooms in every Charlotte-Mecklenburg public school, and students at nearly half of them make the extra effort to dump leftover liquid from milk and juice cartons before tossing them into bins. “The recycling systems are in place in the schools,” says Laurette Hall, environmental manager for Mecklenburg County Solid Waste Services, […]

A recent Supreme Court decision has some trail advocates worried about the fate of the national rails-to-trails program, but the ruling is unlikely to affect North Carolina. The case, Brandt Revocable Trust v. United States, has to do with who retains the property rights to abandoned railroad right of ways. The national Rails-to-Trails Conservancy and […]

(Read the full article about the contest winners here.) Although all excellent photos speak for themselves, sometimes comments from the photographer add another layer of meaning. Kevin J. Beaty, about his photos of the Torance House and Store and of uptown Charlotte: “We used to call it the ‘Ghost House’ when I was a kid, […]

Charlotte ranks near the bottom in a recent study of access to jobs via automobiles in the top 51 U.S. metro areas. Raleigh ranks even lower. The study, Access Across America, by David Levinson, the R.P. Braun/CTS Chair in Transportation Engineering at the University of Minnesota, ranks the Charlotte metro area No. 40, with the […]

Two of the region’s main streets have won this year’s Great Places in North Carolina competition. Union Street in Concord and Main Street in Davidson were recognized among the state’s top downtowns in the competition sponsored by the N.C. chapter of the American Planning Association (APA-NC). Concord’s Union Street competed with more widely recognized main […]

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 […]

Charlotte has lagged much of the country in this period of economic recovery, but the region has finally begun to see a few small signs of better days on the horizon. Over the past several months, there has been gradual improvement in the unemployment rate and home price index in the region. These bright spots […]

When Allen Nelson moved to Charlotte’s Commonwealth-Morningside neighborhood in 2007, he was drawn to the area’s bungalow-style homes, the graceful, mature shade trees and the tucked-away location so close to downtown. But in Nelson’s view, Commonwealth has some of the same problems of many Charlotte neighborhoods – overflowing trash bins, energy-leaking older homes, a scattershot […]

Where are you going for the 4th of July this year? Hiking the western North Carolina Mountains, where you could go for a hike up Mount Mitchell (the highest peak east of the Mississippi)? Camping in the Linville Gorge Wilderness Area of the Pisgah National Forest? You could plan on spending the day trout fishing […]