Social Well-Being
The allure of greenways, throughout the region
Contributor: Nancy Pierce Communities around the Charlotte region are building greenways for residents to use for walking, bicycling, hiking and even skating. The Carolina Thread Trail has played an important role in making these new pathways a growing transportation and recreation resource. The Foundation For The Carolinas helped initiate that project and The Catawba Lands Conservancy […]
Charlotte sponsors strategic planning meeting for neighborhoods
The city, instead of holding its traditional spring summit conference for neighborhood groups, will offer them space and time with facilitators in July to encourage strategic goal-setting and planning. The meetings will be in Foundation For The Carolinas’ uptown meeting rooms, which can accommodate as many as 17 organizations. Trained facilitators from the city and […]
UNC Charlotte’s Institute for Social Capital and Urban Institute to merge
Two of UNC Charlotte’s most visible institutes are merging to create a combined center with unparalleled research capacity to address social issues in the Charlotte region. On March 8, the Institute for Social Capital (ISC) board of directors and UNC Charlotte agreed to merge the ISC staff and operations into the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute, […]
CMS: Mapping measures of progress and pain
Data on schools and school districts are abundant. Both the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) and North Carolina Department of Public Instruction’s websites hold a wealth of data at both levels. But with a district as large as CMS, it is painstaking work to analyze school-level data in a meaningful way. The MeckEd partner page contains data […]
When cities, counties merge: Lessons for Charlotte?
It is commonly expected that consolidating Charlotte and Mecklenburg County will result in less government fragmentation, fewer elected officials and lower the cost of service provision. It very well may, but citizens should know that nothing is guaranteed when it comes to city-county consolidation. And some of the commonly held beliefs about consolidation may not, […]
Survey finds preventive care, dropouts among top concerns
What are the greatest needs facing our community? United Way of Central Carolinas posed this question to Mecklenburg County residents via the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute’s Annual Survey last spring. The survey found the greatest perceived community health need is preventive care; the greatest perceived need for children and youth is dropout prevention; the greatest […]
Snapshots of a resilient America
Amid the pervasive gloom and depression about the future of American cities I was lucky enough to visit recently two very different American places that hold out some hopes for a sustainable future here in the USA. On the face of it, Champaign-Urbana, Ill., and Boston, Mass., could not be more different: one a large […]
Comparing two workforce reports
A Comparison of Findings and Recommendations of Two Reports: “Preparing Our Youth for Work: A Community Assessment”, August 2010 UNC Charlotte Urban Institute and “Workforce Development Sector Analysis: Focusing on Workforce Development for Adults with Barriers to Employment in Charlotte-Mecklenburg”, August 2011 Carol Morris Consulting and The Lee Institute Two different studies in the past […]
Mid-20th-century plans for central Charlotte
Sketches below aer are from the 1966 Greater Charlotte Central Area Plan by A.G. Odell Jr. and Associates. Map is from the 1960 Wilbur Smith Master Highway Transportation Plan.