Multidisciplinary artist Irisol González Vega will make her cinematic debut, premiering her first short film at Charlotte’s Independent Picture House on Friday, Sept. 8.

There are few bigger worries than displacement and gentrification for many neighborhoods in Charlotte, a city with a well-known fondness for bulldozers, cranes and shiny new buildings. And as traditionally low-income, majority-Black neighborhoods around uptown experience some of the most dramatic changes and skyrocketing real estate prices, that’s led local politicians to focus intensely on avoiding, or at least mitigating, some of the impacts.

Latino workers earned 78 cents on the dollar compared to the national average over the past year. But they’re also making economic gains. That’s according to an analysis by Well Fargo Economics, unveiled last week by the Latin American Chamber of Commerce Charlotte.

Project Scientist started in 2011 in the Charlotte house of founder Sandy Marshall, who hosted math and science summer programs for girls. The nonprofit provides after-school programs and summer camps built around science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), and now directly serves about 5,000 girls in North Carolina, California, Minnesota and Texas. Project Scientist even has clubs in Mexico. Meet its new CEO, Patrice Johnson.

Almost 15 years ago, Charlotte’s civic leaders and neighborhood activists created the Renaissance West Community Initiative with the vision of revitalizing a west Charlotte neighborhood through an education village approach. Research shows the connection between stable housing and educational success.

We take a look back at several key points in Charlotte’s LGBT history. The city of Charlotte published a timeline recently that includes some of these events; you can also find a trove of recorded interviews online at UNC Charlotte with LGBT activists and residents if you want to hear firsthand what it was like growing up and living as a gay person in Charlotte in previous decades.

Abel Cruz is part of the H-2A program, through which the government issues temporary visas to 370,000 people, mostly from Mexico, to work in the U.S. in agriculture. North Carolina ranks fifth nationally for the number of workers on seasonal H-2A work visas, with about 15,000 laboring under the sun in fields of ripening tobacco, cotton, soybeans and more. Thousands more workers are undocumented.

Charlotte’s Independent Picture House will screen a series of award-winning and hard-to-find Latin American films starting later this month.

“Exclusionary zoning” reared its head again this week at a City Council committee meeting, the latest in an ongoing fight about how Charlotte should grow and who should be allowed, or able, to live where under new development rules that would allow duplexes and triplexes throughout the city.

Charlotte Pride returns later this month, but festivities start unofficially this weekend with a uniquely Latin American — and Charlottean — event. East Charlotte’s VisArt will host a tribute night this Saturday in celebration of one of Latin America’s most beloved LGBTQ+ icons, Juan Gabriel, known by fans as JuanGa.

Charlotte Water conducts more than 170,000 tests a year for contaminants from fecal bacteria to heavy metals, and sends customers annual reports. But if you’re on well water, it’s a different story. You’re responsible for testing to ensure and maintain the safety of the water flowing from your tap. And a new study released Monday by UNC-Chapel Hill finds that there are big disparities in income and race between well-users when it comes to safety and contamination.

Candidate filing for this year’s municipal elections has wrapped up, setting the stage for local contests that will determine who sits on the school board, the Charlotte City Council, the mayor’s chair and other town boards. A $2.5 billion bond issue for school construction will also be on the ballot, along with $1.5 billion for other county projects. And in the end, it’s likely that fewer than 1 in 5 voters will turn out in Mecklenburg County.

The annual gathering kicks off Sunday at noon in Charlotte. It is held the last week of July to mark Peru’s independence from the Spanish Empire.

It’s striking how many of Charlotte’s local policy debates are still wrapped up in the language of economic mobility. Whether it’s transit and transportation, disparities in the school system, or racial inequities in housing, that’s how you’ll likely hear the questions framed. The latest: In the discussion about a developer seeking public subsidies for a new tennis complex, the sports arena has largely been portrayed as a tool to help low-income communities and children.

Some academics say helping low-income residents buy their own cars, or have access to cars, is a good way to improve economic mobility. Charlotte leaders are focusing instead on boosting the city's transit system.

In 1965, Frederick Alexander became the first African American on the Charlotte City Council in the 20th century. Harvey Gantt was elected the city’s first Black mayor 18 years later, in 1983. Now, a generation later, Black leaders hold many of the most important positions in Mecklenburg County, both elected and appointed. Has their leadership created more equity for residents?

Mecklenburg County’s Latino population has grown by nearly 60,000 people in the past 10 years, according to the 2020 census. A large part of that growth has come from U.S.-born Latinos. This population growth presents both an array of new opportunities as well as shifting needs as more Latinos are born in the United States.

North Carolina's Latino population has gone through exponential growth in the last four decades. There are now more than 1 million Latino residents and 1 in 4 of them live in Mecklenburg or Wake counties. Economic opportunities in Mecklenburg County and North Carolina drive the growth.

Charlotte has invested an estimated $400 million in expanding pre-kindergarten and creating and preserving affordable housing as ways to improve the odds of children escaping poverty. That push came after Charlotte ranked last among 50 major cities in a study on economic mobility. As part of our increasing focus on race and equity issues, we take a closer look at where efforts in those areas stand.

The 2014 Land of Opportunity Study that ranked Charlotte 50 out of 50 for the largest community zones in the nation for economic mobility has been updated with tax returns through 2015. It also separates people by race and ethnicity, allowing a direct comparison between Black, Latino and white residents from different cities.

In 2014, Charlotte got some unsettling news – despite its booming economy, the American Dream was floundering here. A Harvard-Berkeley study found a child born in poverty had the lowest chances among major U.S. cities of making it out of poverty. It was a rallying cry for government, nonprofits, and companies to work together to improve those odds. But now, eight years later, it’s hard to tell whether we've made progress on those efforts.