General News

With early voting underway in a presidential election that has seemed to last forever, it’s worth remembering local elections are also on the ballot, even if they draw far less attention. And in Charlotte’s recent local election, 2015, older voters punched far above their weight. MORE ABOUT VOTING MORE CHARLOTTE DATA MORE NATIONAL DATA In […]

If your agency or organization would like an affordable, reliable way to gauge public opinion and attitudes, participate in the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute’s Annual Survey of Mecklenburg County residents. Participating agencies pay only for the questions they want to ask, as a way to share the cost of conducting the survey. The cost also […]

Ever notice how the full moon always rises at sunset and sets at sunrise? This wondrous byproduct of planetary alignment gives us long nights of landscapes silvered by the sun’s reflected light. Even in my urban neighborhood, the moonshine casts strong shadows. In the evenings surrounding the Harvest Moon in September, my garden seemed especially […]

If you’re much of a birder and you ever use playbacks to attract a bird, you know there’s one sure way to get a variety of birds to come out. Play the song of an eastern screech owl. Songbirds are one of their favorite prey species, yet those little guys don’t give up without a […]

A years-long debate over where to locate the county’s still-unfunded southeast transit corridor – the Silver Line – may be ending this month. But even as that long debate over whether Independence Boulevard is the right route appears likely to be put to bed, this issue still looms: There is no money to build the […]

The UNC Charlotte Urban Institute and its PlanCharlotte.org web publication have been awarded a $15,000 grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to continue their work as citywide organizers of a series of Charlotte neighborhood City Walks each May. The walks are inspired by the work of urban observer and writer Jane […]

One interesting and beautiful plant you may have seen along a river or creek, sometimes in great number, is spotted jewelweed (Impatiens capensis). You may be more familiar with another of its names – touch-me-not. It is also called common jewelweed, orange jewelweed or orange balsam. Spotted jewelweed grows predominantly in wetlands and can grow […]

Taking a car day trip is obviously the way to see the most and get the most out of your day, right? Well … no. On a spontaneous weekend recently, I got to compare different ways of traveling. On Saturday my boyfriend and I took a driving trip from Boston, where I live now, to […]

Charlotte-Mecklenburg residents may be growing weary of the stagnated state of the economy, the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute’s Annual Survey showed. For more than 30 years the institute has produced an annual survey of Mecklenburg County, primarily with questions from clients such as nonprofit agencies and local governments. But each year the institute includes a […]

I wanted to know more about the rarest butterfly in North Carolina, so I caught up recently with Nick Haddad, the William Neal Reynolds Professor of Applied Ecology at N.C. State University to ask about the St. Francis’ satyr and its conservation status. First, I wanted to know, what exactly is the St. Francis’ satyr, […]