General News
‘Raise our expectations:’ Four takeaways from Charlotte City Council’s retreat
Charlotte faces a wide range of needs, from affordable housing to more police, bigger parks and better transit, but they all share a similar root cause: growth. That was one of the main themes at City Council’s annual planning retreat, held this week over four days in Durham at the Washington Duke Inn. There was […]
Should Charlotte make its transit system free?
There’s been a lot of planning lately for Charlotte’s growing transit system, with new rail lines, improved bus service and the first inter-county transit links in the works — as well as questions about how to pay for that growth. But one Charlotte City Council member raised a different idea this week at the group’s […]
Job alert: Join the Urban Institute team
The UNC Charlotte Urban Institute is hiring an Associate Director of Research who will also serve as the Director of Community Research Services. The Director will serve as the day-to-day manager of the Institute research team and will manage ongoing tasks that enable the Institute to provide research with and for the Charlotte, North Carolina […]
Nonprofit charts a new course for troubled South End development
A new, mixed-income housing development is set to take the place of a long-troubled, low-income housing complex in South End. Brookhill Village is a paradox: An oasis of affordability in the midst of a booming and fast-gentrifying part of the city, but full of run-down units, many of them boarded up and visibly decaying from […]
Would Charlotte be better off with less planning?
A film I recently watched at the Bechtler Museum about the planning conflicts between Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses in 1950s New York City got me thinking about how issues with planners and the planning process play out today. (Disclaimer: As a teenage surfer in NYC at the time, I had a very high regard […]
A Brief HunterWood history lession
HunterWood and several surrounding neighborhoods were carved from 200 acres once owned by the Hunter family, whose homestead still stands on Charlotte’s Sardis Road. The Rev. John Hunter, installed as the minister at nearby Sardis Presbyterian Church in 1859, began assembling the property during the Civil War in the 1860s and lived there until he […]
Accepting change when you can’t stop it in a “tear-down” neighborhood
This is the second part in a two-part series. Read the first story here
Charlotte has 56 “tear-down” neighborhoods: Here’s a portrait of one
This is the first part in a two-part series. Read the second story here
Charlotte is trying to get you out of your car and onto a bus
Bus ridership has been falling in Charlotte for years, even though buses still carry the majority of public transit riders. Local transit officials are hoping to reverse the trend with dedicated bus lanes, greater frequency and easier ways for people to track when the next bus is coming. But they face hurdles, including money and […]
‘Stay true to what we are’: Looking ahead while appreciating the past
What a year 2019 has been been for the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute: The completion of a two-year study of the connections between Charlotte and surrounding rural communities. The launch of a new Urban Institute Faculty Fellows program focusing on economic opportunity. The inaugural Schul Forum Series. But it was also a year of reflection, […]