Contest: Show us the places you love

What places in our region have a hold on your heart? Is there a building or a patch of woods so special to you that you’d lie down in front of a bulldozer to save it? We want to know about it.

To celebrate our first anniversary, PlanCharlotte.org is sponsoring a photo contest to let our readers show us what places in this area they consider special.

Send us a photo of a place that means much to you, along with a short note (200 words or shorter) about it. The places can be outdoors or indoors, city streets or woodland creeks, new buildings or historic ones. The place can be an inspiring example of the best in new development, or can be a historic tree that has survived centuries. The idea is to photograph a place you treasure.

We’ll publish the best, and give the winner a $50 gift card to Park Road Books at Charlotte’s Park Road Shopping Center.

Since PlanCharlotte debuted on March 15, 2012, as a project of the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute, we’ve strived to offer you intelligent and informed news and analysis about growth and the environment in the 14-county Charlotte region.

Enter using email or mail:

Email: Send entries including essay and photo to plancharlotte@gmail.com. Photos should be no smaller than 600 x 800 pixels. Include your name, address and contact information (phone or email). We won’t publish the address but use it for verification. Include the location of the photo, preferably with an address.

Mail: Mail entries to Mary Newsom, associate director, UNC Charlotte Urban Institute, 9201 University City Blvd., Charlotte, NC 28223. Include your name, address and contact information (phone or email). We won’t publish the address but use it for verification. Include the location of the photo, preferably with an address.

A few rules:

1. Your photo can be from anywhere within the 14-county Charlotte region: Anson, Cabarrus, Catawba, Cleveland, Gaston, Iredell, Lincoln, Mecklenburg, Rowan, Stanly and Union counties, and in South Carolina, Chester, Lancaster and York counties. (Although we love the beach, the Appalachian Trail and the Umbrian hills, photos from outside the region aren’t eligible.)

2. Employees of the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute are welcome to enter, but they can’t win.

3. Yes, it can be a few words over 200 – we won’t throw away a great entry that’s 201 words – but this isn’t a writing contest. No poetry, please.

4. Enter as many times as you like. The contest ends April 5.