Articles

[title_1]
Having the hard conversations: Gentrification and displacement in Charlotte
   September 26, 2022
Lori Thomas, Ph.D.

Our first Schul conversation this fall focused on gentrification and displacement – a conversation that’s necessary and often difficult. The discussion featured three panelists: one of our Gambrell Faculty Fellows, Dr. Kendra Jason; Charlotte attorney and community housing advocate, Ismaail Qaiyim; research economist at the US Census Bureau, Dr. Kate Pennington; and our Director of Regional...

Read more


[title_1]
Charlotte leaders are looking for regional cooperation — and funding — to restart stalled transit expansion plan
   September 21, 2022
Ely Portillo

Charlotte’s transit plan is dead — long live the Charlotte region’s transit plan? 

It’s been almost two years since the $13.5 billion Charlotte MOVES plan was unveiled, and there have been weeks of hints that changes are coming to the city’s plan for expanded rail, bus and other transportation...

Read more


[title_1]
Four things I wish I'd known about Charlotte's housing market before I started writing about it
   September 15, 2022
Ely Portillo

No local issue has been bigger than housing in Charlotte for the past few years — specifically, how much it costs to find a place to live. 

The soaring cost of housing dominates local news, local government meetings and local conversations. Talk to anyone in Charlotte, and it won’t be long before you hear some version of the following stories: Cruising some Zillow listings in a nearby...

Read more


[title_1]
Streets of gold? Debunking American immigration myths
   September 13, 2022
Aaron Houck, Ph.D.

The 1986 animated film An American Tail celebrates America’s story of immigration in the late 1800s and early 1900s–using mice as stand-ins for the humans who came to these shores from Eastern and Southern Europe. The anthropomorphic rodents’ unrealistic hopes for their new home were best expressed in the song “...

Read more


[title_1]
Charlotte's changing climate, with Brad Panovich
   September 12, 2022
Ely Portillo

From seemingly endless heat waves in the west to catastrophic floods from Kentucky to Pakistan, a drumbeat of extreme weather has dominated the news this summer. In Charlotte, it can feel like we’re not on the front lines of climate change — we’re not on the coast watching sea levels...

Read more


[title_1]
Unruly plants and passionate attraction in a Charlotte garden
   September 8, 2022
Ruth Ann Grissom

I love playing matchmaker in my garden. I introduce plants that will be compatible in terms of color, texture and form. As with humans, the best relationships achieve a balance of contrast and harmony. For example, I paired little bluestem and rattlesnake master because they share the same blue foliage, but one is coarse and strappy while the other is refined and upright. These arranged...

Read more


[title_1]
Shrinking Charlotte’s transit ambitions to get something built
   September 7, 2022
Ely Portillo
Steve Harrison, WFAE

Almost two years after Charlotte’s ambitious transit expansion plan was unveiled, local officials are admitting something that’s become increasingly apparent: It might not come to fruition, at least not as originally proposed. 

That’s because the linchpin of the whole $13.5 billion Charlotte MOVES plan — a one-cent local sales tax that would require approval from the legislature in...

Read more


[title_1]
Could employee ownership help close the racial wealth gap? Yes — if more people knew about it
   August 31, 2022
Ely Portillo

With a “silver tsunami” of business owner retirements looming and major generational transfers of wealth on the horizon, employee ownership of small businesses could be an attractive strategy for many firms — as well as beneficial for society.

That’s what a group of...

Read more


[title_1]
How to make Charlotte a place where creatives can thrive
   August 29, 2022
Ely Portillo

Let's be honest: When you think "Charlotte," the next words to pop into your head aren't "creative powerhouse," are they?

People are more likely to think of Charlotte as a center of banking and finance, a busy airline hub, or a hothouse for the booming real estate market. But Charlotte is also a creative center in its own right, and there are people working to make sure the city learns...

Read more


[title_1]
Is the Charlotte region a 'brain hub' like Raleigh-Durham?
   August 22, 2022
Aaron Houck, Ph.D.

The Charlotte region is a banking hub, an air travel hub, even a sports hub — but is it a “brain hub”? That’s the most important question local policymakers will find themselves asking after reading Enrico Moretti’s The New Geography of Jobs. Brain hubs enjoy disproportionate prosperity and opportunity, and the gap between them and other cities and regions will only widen. Raleigh-...

Read more