Charlotte’s tree canopy at risk as building boom accelerates

Added: 2026-05-26

[00:00:00]There's a chance that gray infrastructure can replace a lot of things that we sort of gave away because we didn't understand the value of them, right?

[00:00:08]>> The summers are much hotter. Charlotte has battled for the last um 20 years with uh complying with air quality standards, particularly for ozone. Ozone is found, you know, essentially developed by these urban heat islands that cook different chemicals coming out of exhaust pipes. And this this affects everybody downwind of us. Salisbury has had air quality issues associated with ozone from Charlotte. People in general are hungry for more trees. So, there's a lot of appetite for change.

[00:00:43]However, it's very important in Charlotte to make the business case, all right? And developers will tell you that it's very expensive to do this. This will drive housing prices up. It will drive rents up. We're short on affordable housing. Now, it'll make it even worse.

[00:01:02]But, there's an in-between point. There is a way to essentially not be a zero-sum game, to not have winners and losers, but to wind up in the middle.

[00:01:13]And right now, we haven't found it.