Quality of Life

By Kailas Venkitasubramanian, Ph.D.
How can we understand Charlotte’s urban growth more holistically? With the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Quality of Life Explorer, of course.

The Charlotte Mecklenburg Quality of Life Explorer is a tool that provides incredible value to our local governments, especially the City of Charlotte. At its core, it is a single location that provides consistent, reliable, and up-to-date information about the City and its neighborhoods. Whether there is a need from Economic Development to understand the […]

Although we are celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Quality of Life Explorer, the history of Quality of Life in Charlotte actually goes back more than 25 years. Below is a brief timeline of the development of the Quality of Life project in Charlotte. 1993: Charlotte Mecklenburg Planning Commission Identifies City Within A City neighborhoods […]

Editor’s Note: We’re celebrating 10 years of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Quality of Life Explorer. The Charlotte Mecklenburg Quality of Life Explorer launched ten years ago as a collaboration between UNC Charlotte, The City of Charlotte, and Mecklenburg County. The dashboard, which can be found online at mcmap.org/qol is a neighborhood indicators project, showcasing over 80 different […]

What neighborhoods in Charlotte have a high share of renter households, and where are people most likely to own their homes? What parts of the county have the highest concentration of babies with low birth weights? Where can you find two adjacent communities with a nearly three-decade difference in average lifespans? If you’re a journalist […]

The Quality of Life Explorer — Charlotte-Mecklenburg’s source for more than 80 interactively mapped variables about the economy, environment, demographics and more — has been updated with new information allowing you to explore our community. Maps that rely on data from the U.S. Census’ American Community Survey are now up-to-date. This includes variables such as […]

Which parts of Charlotte use the most water? Where is our growth eating up whatever vacant land is left in Mecklenburg County? Where are the racial, economic and other dividing lines that crisscross our community? You can answer these questions and more with the updated Quality of Life Explorer maps published online today. A joint […]

Where you live in Charlotte and Mecklenburg County might reflect your race, income, education level, how old you are and even how likely you are to be in an area where eligible streams are adopted for clean-up. Newly updated maps from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Quality of Life Explorer let you explore all these factors and more. […]

Which Charlotte neighborhoods have gotten denser, with more residences per acre? Where have average home sizes ballooned? Is the proportion of single-family homes rising or falling in neighborhoods where new apartments and tear-downs vie for space? Newly updated maps on the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Quality of Life Explorer allow you to probe these questions and visualize changes […]

Since the coronavirus lockdowns began, Mecklenburg’s resource helpline has seen housing assistance requests jump 219% and food assistance jump 747%. These numbers are an indication of the dramatic impacts we’re seeing unfold on Charlotte-Mecklenburg’s economy. It has been more than one month since Governor Roy Cooper declared a state of emergency to combat the spread […]