Sustainability

A new “Central Park” for Charlotte. A Tryon Street that prioritizes pedestrians over cars. A new neighborhood built around the Carolina Panthers’ stadium, and the burial — or even total elimination — of I-277. These are some of the big ideas planners are batting around as they work on the new Center City Vision Plan, […]

After COVID-19, cities will change forever. Here’s a sampling of predictions I’m seeing: People will avoid close physical encounters. Or maybe not. Maybe they’ll flock to crowded bars and restaurants after weeks of lockdown. Stores, bludgeoned by pandemic closings and high rents, will fail. So will smaller, non-chain restaurants. Cities will become blander and more […]

Projects that usually take years are happening in weeks during the coronavirus pandemic: Cities are closing streets to cars, opening public space for sidewalk cafes and investing more in pop-up parks and outdoor amenities. Planners are responding to a desperate desire for more public, outdoor space, as restaurants, gyms, bars, concert venues, offices, schools and […]

Part 1 of this series focused on what ails bus systems in major U.S. cities, and how the Charlotte Area Transit System is attempting to reverse its own downward trend in bus ridership. But buses are only one piece of a complicated transit puzzle of what works, what doesn’t, and why. In his recent book, […]

It’s hard shopping for the city that has it all: Gleaming office towers, a new-ish light rail line, a booming population and one of the world’s busiest airports. But that doesn’t mean Charlotte couldn’t still use a few gifts this holiday season. After all, despite the city’s obvious and explosive growth, there are still plenty […]

About 45 minutes from Charlotte in neighboring Cabarrus County, the owners of 1,000-acre Porter Farms raise chickens and pigs on part of their land. The chickens are sold to Tysons Foods, and the pigs become sausage, pork chops and spare ribs for Smithfield Foods. Another part of the property is a cattle farm, and since […]

In the far southeastern tip of Montgomery County, where Moore, Richmond and Montgomery counties all converge, a stream with an evocative name flows: Drowning Creek. Drowning Creek is a high quality stream, which means it has little pollution and good aquatic diversity. The creek flows southward into the Lumber River, which was originally called Drowning […]

It’s happening across Charlotte: Apartments, office buildings and restaurants are popping up in parking lots, as dense, mixed-use developments, connected by bicycle paths and walking trails, invade suburbia. Within the past month, major plans have been announced for densifying and transforming chunks of Ballantyne, SouthPark and University City – three of the biggest bastions of […]

There are three things most Charlotteans seem to agree on: a victory streak for the Panthers, a cool brew at a neighborhood brewpub, and free (or mostly free) parking. But with the surge of new and promising technologies and platforms in recent years – Uber, Lyft, autonomous cars, dockless bike sharing, and even electric scooters […]

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 […]