Bill Graves

UNC Charlotte
Associate Professor John H. Biggs Faculty Fellow Dept. of Geography and Earth Sciences

Biography

William Graves is an associate professor and John H. Biggs Faculty Fellow in the department of geography and earth sciences at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. During 2005-06  Graves was a GlaxoSmithKline Faculty Fellow in the Economic Development of North Carolina at the Institute for Emerging Issues at North Carolina State University. He teaches courses on the geography of North Carolina, the geography of knowledge and information, retail location and business applications of geographic information systems.

Education

Graves has a doctorate in geography from the  University of Georgia (2000); a master of arts in geography from the  University of Georgia (1994);  bachelor of arts in geography from the  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1990) and a bachelor of arts in physics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1990).

Expertise

Impacts of economic change in the southeastern United States, particularly the development of advanced services within the urban South. A central theme of this research has been the role of financial systems in southern industrial transformation. A secondary line of research examines the impacts of globalization on Charlotte's urban form.  Some of this work appeared in Charlotte, NC: The Global Evolution of a New South City  published by the University of Georgia Press. 

Articles

  • Will Americans continue to be suburban creatures?
    plancharlotte.org
    Jul 18, 2013
    The question is widely debated among experts and in the press. Do surveys showing more preference for walkable, in-town neighborhoods measure a fleeting fad, or portend the end of suburbia? A UNC Charlotte geographer looks deeper. (Photo: Nancy Pierce)
  • Will Americans continue to be suburban creatures?
    ui.uncc.edu
    Jul 18, 2013
    The question is widely debated among experts and in the press. Do surveys showing more preference for walkable, in-town neighborhoods measure a fleeting fad, or portend the end of suburbia? A UNC Charlotte geographer looks deeper. (Photo: Nancy Pierce)
  • Should Charlotte Look Like Paris or Atlanta?
    plancharlotte.org
    Mar 03, 2011
    What should Charlotte look like?  When discussing urban design many planners, architects and developers assume that what works in New York, San Francisco and Portland should work here.  This assumption ignores the reality that Southerners have a very different perspective on "...
  • Should Charlotte Look Like Paris or Atlanta?
    ui.uncc.edu
    Mar 03, 2011
    What should Charlotte look like?  When discussing urban design many planners, architects and developers assume that what works in New York, San Francisco and Portland should work here.  This assumption ignores the reality that Southerners have a very different perspective on "...
  • Research Triangle West: Bringing knowledge production to the western Piedmont
    ui.uncc.edu
    Oct 07, 2010
    In the early 1950s the not yet established Research Triangle Park (RTP) was pitched to Governor Luther Hodges as a cluster of “two medical schools, two engineering schools and a core of preeminent researchers in every field of science.”  Hodges response: he called the presenter (a...