Articles

Color and peace with spring wildflowers and migrants

Maybe it’s because I’ve spent the past two years obsessing over the squiggly lines charting COVID's peaks and troughs. I began to imagine the shape a graph might take if I plotted the occurrence of spring wildflowers and neotropical migrants.

I envision the wildflower display as two gentle but significant peaks – one in mid-March and the other in mid-April. Migrating  birds increase at...

Mapping unequal health care access in Charlotte

Your access to medicine, lifesaving COVID-19 vaccines and other pharmacy services might depend on what part of town you live in. 

The Urban Institute recently updated the Quality of Life Explorer data maps to include several new metrics, one of which is particularly relevant as we enter year three of the global pandemic. “Proximity to a pharmacy,” ...

Local leaders are worried about corporate landlords, but find their ‘hands tied’

Wall Street-backed companies are buying thousands of single-family homes and turning them into rentals across the Charlotte region. Local officials are worried about the effects on affordability, home ownership and equity — but there isn’t much they can do to directly stop the trend. 

That’s what Mecklenburg County commissioners heard this week from county staff and a panel of local...

Charlotte City Walks returns in 2022

For the first time in three years, Charlotte City Walks are back with a full line-up of free, in-person, community-led tours to introduce Charlotteans to new sides of their city. 

City Walks were canceled in 2020 and went virtual-only in 2021 because of the pandemic. This year, we are excited to welcome people from across our community to once again gather and learn about Charlotte's...