Explore your world with maps

We know many of you are map-lovers, so we’ve collected a selection of online maps to provoke thought and spark exploration. We’ll regularly feature a recent map of particular interest. We have included a set of maps featuring the Charlotte region, from the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute’s three websites. Below those are links to intriguing maps we found online.

Featured map

Our maps

Maps we like

  • The cultural generation gap mapped - Diversity in America

  • Where There Are More Single Men Than Women

    Staff - Feb 23, 2015
    There is an interesting spatial distribution of single men and women across the United States.  What makes this even more interesting is the difference when age groups are calculated.  In almost every major metro area in the country, between the ages of 18 and 34, single men outnumber single women.  However, in the age group of 45 to 64, single women tend to outnumber single men in most of the country's cities.

  • America's quietest places

    Staff - Feb 18, 2015
    Looking for a quiet place? This map from the American Association for the Advancement of Science shows the noise levels across the country on an average summer day.

  • The most common job in every state 1978-2014

    Staff - Feb 16, 2015
    What jobs are most common in each state? How does that compare with 1978? And what happened to all the secretaries?

Articles

  • Optimist Hall, a food hall and Duke Energy Innovation Center, is in a reused mill that dates to 1891.

    Charlotte’s torn down a lot of old buildings. But one type has staying power.

    Ely Portillo - Aug 7, 2019
    Breweries, apartments, hip food halls, creative offices, coworking spaces: Charlotte developers keep finding new uses for the city’s old mills. As a post-war, Sunbelt boomtown, Charlotte has garnered a reputation for tearing down its old buildings and replacing them with sterile plaques to make way for the city’s glittering new skyline. But while many once-grand buildings have fallen (Goodbye, Masonic Temple and Hotel Charlotte), the humble, sturdy mill has proved surprisingly resilient. 
  • Piazza Navona in Rome. Credit: Paul Edmondson/National Trust for Historic Preservation

    Why do old places matter? A Mecklenburg native explores the question.

    Jeff Michael - Aug 6, 2019
    Why do we care about old places, and why should we work to preserve them? A Huntersville native and prominent national preservationist takes a look at those questions through a lens that stretches from Eastland Mall to the historic wonders of Rome. 
  • Light rail and TOD development make their mark in University City. From this intersection to Uptown by rail takes about 20 minutes. Photo by Nancy Pierce.

    (Almost) everything you ever wanted to know about TOD but were afraid to ask

    Martin Zimmerman - Jul 31, 2019
    Since City Council approved TOD Article 15 - the new Transit-Oriented Development ordinance - last April, land use consultants, architects, real estate attorneys and other insiders have had ample opportunity to sort out these new rules. As for laypersons, gleaning what they need to know from TOD’s eighty-one page assemblage of definitions, rules, standards, charts and graphics can be a real challenge, despite efforts by staff planners to make the document as jargon-free and user-friendly as possible. 
  • Construction on a new, luxury apartment building in Dilworth. Photo: Nancy Pierce.

    A builder’s perspective: Housing affordability is about more than subsidies

    John Huson - Jul 30, 2019
    Charlotte has a problem with housing affordability for many of its citizens. But the solution is more complicated and nuanced than just putting more money into subsidies. The housing affordability problem is primarily a result of the combination of two basic factors: It is getting more and more expensive to develop and operate housing, while at the same time, many families don’t have enough income to meet the required prices associated with these higher costs.