Articles About Environment and Planning
There will certainly be scores of studies and articles for years to come about lessons for public administrators from how our multiple levels and units of government managed the unprecedented COVID-19 crisis. An important place to start is asking the right set of questions. To assist me with this task, we have the good fortune […]
Sitting in a gas station turned into a café and coffee shop along Rozzelles Ferry Road in Charlotte’s Historic West End, J’Tanya Adams, a longtime community activist, spotted a commercial real estate broker who has been working with developers interested in building new homes in the area. The conversation was brief, but packed with news. […]
It’s a great time to be in the woods and spot our region’s many wildflowers (socially distant and with plenty of room between you and anyone else on the trail, of course). Although many state parks are closed due to COVID-19 situation, the trails in the Uwharrie National Forest are still open, and exercise is […]
Closed bars, restaurants and breweries. Hundreds of thousands of employees working from home while trying to home-school children. Near-empty road and no toilet paper on the shelves. The immediate impacts from the coronavirus crisis are highly visible. But the virus could have more long-lasting and farther-reaching impacts beyond the immediate unemployment and economic disruption we’re […]
After weighing the pros and cons of taking groceries to elderly parents; after assessing the risk of exposing them to coronavirus while driving them to the doctor; after worrying about friends who are sick in New York City, those who are considered essential workers and those who are now unemployed; after obsessively wiping surfaces with […]
Everything from the NCAA basketball tournament to this spring’s garden parties at Buckingham Palace has been canceled, and the disruptions have also reached into the rhythm of meetings and public input sessions that drives much of planning and development in Charlotte. It might seem like a comparatively minor impact, but the disruptions to public input […]
“Did you know? Charlotte’s going to ban single-family zoning!” I overheard this at a local coffee shop the other day. I should have walked over and told the speaker that’s not true, but I was too shy. So let me say here, very clearly: It is not true that Charlotte planners intend to ban single-family […]
Nothing speaks of the winter sky quite like a flock of blackbirds flying in unison above a sprawling pasture, field or marsh. They spiral and bank and funnel, breathing life into a void of leaden gray. It’s a spectacle you won’t observe in any other season. In the Piedmont, these flocks are often composed of […]
Leaders from across the region gathered Monday in a conference room at Charlotte Douglas International Airport with an ambitious goal: Creating a comprehensive plan for public transit, covering a dozen counties and setting the transit agenda for decades. Called CONNECT Beyond, the 18-month planning effort by the Centralina Council of Governments is, to put it […]
North Carolina is truly blessed with a fantastic and diverse system of state parks and nature preserves, stretching from the mountains to the coast. I’ve visited 19 of these in my 38 years, and I’m already making plans to see some of the ones I’ve missed. Below are some of my favorite experiences at some […]
A vacant park in a bustling downtown. A waterside bandshell and lawn that sit empty most days of the year. A busy intersection thousands of people drive through every day without a pause. In a fast-growing city that lacks parks and other public gathering spaces, planners are looking at ways to make these places into […]
UPDATE: The programs mentioned below have all been canceled due to coronavirus concerns. It’s all around us, but we usually can’t smell or see air pollution. A major art piece and a series of events coming to Charlotte this spring could help change that. “Most air pollution in North Carolina is invisible,” said June Blotnick, […]