Articles About Environment and Planning
You’d think I would have known better. After all, I’ve been writing about growth since before they called it Smart Growth, and I’m still writing about it now that it’s “resiliency,” or “sustainable growth” or whatever the next term is. I can’t count how many times I’ve explained that when you decide where you want […]
Have you been seeing more turtles than usual on your morning commute lately? If you’ve been driving this spring on rural highways in North Carolina, you might have detected a surge in turtle activity, especially snapping turtles. Chelydraserpentina, or the common snapping turtle, is one of the more striking members of our state’s turtle clan. […]
Julie Campoli’s new paperback, Made for Walking: Density and Neighborhood Form, is a must read for anyone in and around Charlotte who wants to know what it takes to make good neighborhoods into great ones. The book follows Campoli’s earlier Visualizing Density with photographer Alex S. MacLean; both were published by the Lincoln Institute of […]
Years ago, a friend in Uwharrie showed me a crooked tree on his family’s property. Its trunk was bent at two right angles, creating a horizontal span about 4 feet off the ground. He said they called it their “ducker-header” tree. Their clever terminology came to mind again recently when I learned about the Trail […]
“Smart Growth was an intellectual fetish of a self-selected liberal Eastern elite.” Robert J. Grow, president and CEO of Envision Utah, a public-private collaboration in the Salt Lake City region, told about 400 Charlotte region residents that his Western region calls what it does “quality growth.” “It was our growth,” he said. “It was our […]
Mecklenburg County residents can add one more item to the growing list of uses for their smartphones: reporting water pollution. Be a Water Watcher Click here to learn about downloading the Water Watcher app for your smart phone. Charlotte Mecklenburg Storm Water Services launched a new app in February called Water Watchers, which lets users […]
The discovery of a new species conjures images of explorers in pith helmets hacking through remote regions of the Amazon and stumbling across something outlandish. The reality is generally much less dramatic. New species can still be found in our own backyards, even in the well-trod Piedmont. According to Alan Weakley, director of the Herbarium […]
Fact No. 1: A sidewalk runs beside the light rail tracks through South End, from Morehead Street to a little north of the Scaleybark Station. Fact. No. 2: South End, which grew up from what had been an industrial sector of the city (nearby Dilworth and Wilmore neighborhoods notwithstanding), does not have a park. Add […]
Have you ever wondered what you might see if you spent a whole weekend outside just looking? How about if you could also bring a few expert field biologists and naturalists with you? Well, that’s what we were able to at The LandTrust for Central North Carolina’s first Uwharrie Naturalist Weekend in May. More than […]
How can the city of Charlotte boost both the value of its neighborhoods and their quality of life? What national trends should developers, planners and neighborhood residents be aware of? How do different development patterns affect the need for city spending? Those questions and more will be part of the discussion at a public lecture […]
A friend of mine recently rescued a snake from the parking lot where he works, and released it back into the woods. He sent me a picture asking for help identifying it. The coloration threw me off a bit, so I had to ask an expert. It was about four feet long with a mix […]
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – On the day much of the Boston area stayed indoors for the manhunt of a Boston marathon bombing suspect, I was in town for a conference on “The Resilient City.” Like almost everyone in Boston, most conference attendees obeyed the April 19 “stay indoors” order. And the whole bizarre experience – seeing […]