Mary Newsom

Biography

Mary is a lifelong newspaper journalist who spent several decades at The Charlotte Observer as an editorial board member and columnist, concentrating on Charlotte regional urban and suburban growth, planning, urban design, transportation and land preservation. She left the Observer and joined the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute in 2011. She had a year-long Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University 2007-08, and in 2005-06 was a Knight Fellow in Community Building at the University of Miami. Newsom retired from the insitute in 2018 as Director of Urban Policy Initiatives, and is now a freelance writer in Charlotte. 

Education

A.B. Journalism UNC Chapel Hill

Expertise

Urban and suburban issues, Charlotte region and North Carolina politics and government, writing, editing and journalism.

Stories by Mary Newsom

Planning kicks off for Blue Line station areas

Have thoughts about plans for development along the hoped-for next leg of Charlotte’s light rail line? Three public workshops are scheduled, starting this Thursday.

Foxx’s ‘pep rally’ for consolidation

The event Tuesday afternoon was billed as Mayor Anthony Foxx hosting a “roundtable discussion on Regionalism & Reinvention” but it was, at heart, a dignified pep rally for consolidation.

Developer Daniel Levine: I’d rather do nothing than not do it well

After he and his family have bought property in uptown Charlotte for two decades and made plans for its future, developer Daniel Levine has partnered with Charlotte and Mecklenburg County to build a...

A burning question for Sun Belt cities

It was a hot night in a hot city the day after the hottest month ever recorded in the United States. By 7 the temperature had slid from the 90s to the high 80s, as I pulled up to a 1960s split-level...

Finding a lesson in city’s budget, streetcar impasse

How did this happen? How did a Charlotte City Council – with all 11 members willing to vote for a small property tax hike to pay for an ambitious, five-year plan of neighborhood improvements – wind...