Thanksgiving is about gathering with family and friends to enjoy a hearty meal and maybe watch some football. But for a few hundred people, it's about gathering in uptown Charlotte to play chess.
The US Masters in chess is happening through Sunday. It's the fourth time the annual tournament has been held in Charlotte. The Charlotte Ledger Business Newsletter wrote about it this week, and The Ledger's Tony Mecia joins me now for our segment BizWorthy.
Marshall Terry: It looks like the schedule's pretty packed, Tony. Are players going to get a chance to grab some Turkey and cranberry sauce?
Tony Mecia: Well, that's a good question, Marshall. I think they're definitely going to be grabbing some rooks and pawns. There are sessions for this big US Masters chess tournament today on Thanksgiving, as well as throughout the weekend. It's a big chess tournament being held uptown at the Westin — about 700 players, $41,000 in prize purse. So, it's a pretty big deal.
Terry: So, when did Charlotte become a chess city?
Mecia: Well, I think it's really developed over the last, maybe, decade or so. The Charlotte Chess Center, I think, has been pretty instrumental in that. They have a couple locations now. They've really sort of brought organization to the playing of chess. Obviously, there have always been people playing chess in Charlotte. But as far as hosting tournaments, holding summer camps for kids, having nights where people can come in and play, and get to know each other, they sort of brought a lot of that organization and kind of built up a pretty big following there.
Terry: All right. Well, let's move over to housing now. You waded through a new 67-page report on Charlotte's housing market and wrote about some of the highlights. What did you find?
Mecia: This is an annual report that UNC Charlotte's Belk College of Business — their Childress Klein Center for Real Estate — puts out. And, no surprise, housing costs are going to be more expensive. The things that I found sort of interesting [were] looking at how our affordability of housing in Charlotte compares nationally and to peer cities. For a long time, Charlotte actually had the edge on other cities, as far as having housing that people could afford. It's sort of losing that edge a little bit in comparison to the Atlantas and the Nashvilles and the Charlestons. It's not as cheap as it used to be.
Obviously, there are a lot of people moving here. A lot of people want housing. And local business and political leaders say we just haven't built enough housing to keep pace with that demand, and that's what's causing the escalating prices.
Terry: It appears one reason there's a need to build more housing is because household sizes are decreasing. What's going on there?
Mecia: The report highlighted a decline in the last few years in average household size in the Charlotte region. It used to be — before 2019, the average size of a household was about 2.66 people, and it's dropped since around the time of COVID. It's dropped to about 2.51.
That doesn't sound like a big drop. But you multiply it across all these housing units and you can see that if you have the same number of people moving here every year, but the household sizes are smaller, then you actually need more housing than you otherwise would. And the study's authors attributed that to a large number of single young people moving to Charlotte. That's a good thing. But it also places, obviously, a lot of demand on housing.
Terry: Finally, just in time for the busy holiday travel season, Charlotte Douglas was named the fastest-growing airport in the first half of 2024. Just how much did it grow?
Mecia: Yeah. The ratings agency Fitch came out and they studied airports across the country, and found that Charlotte Douglas had the highest increase of passengers in the first half of this year. They put the number at about 19% year-over-year growth. The airport's numbers are closer to 16% year-over-year growth. A few different ways to measure that. Obviously, there's a lot of activity at Charlotte Douglas. More passengers than ever. A lot of it has to do with American [Airlines] expanding the number of flights it has. Charlotte, of course, is American's second-largest hub — so it's been expanding. And then, of course, there's growth here locally. There are other airlines that are adding flights. So it's definitely a busy time at the airport.
Support for BizWorthy comes from the original Mattress Factory and our listeners.
