Reporting on Growth and Open Space
Air Quality and Water Resources
Dale Willman: Environmental Journalism
A national award-winning correspondent and editor for 30 years, Dale Willman is a leading voice in environmental journalism. He also lectures and teaches on college campuses on numerous topics, from environmental journalism to diversity in the media. Willman spent more than 10 years in various roles at National Public Radio in Washington, D.C. During the first Gulf War he provided reporting and hourly newscasts from London. His work was included in NPR’s receipt of the 1991 duPont-Columbia Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism. Also while with NPR, Willman shared a Peabody Award for his work on the Lost and Found Sound series broadcast on All Things Considered. He produced and edited the most popular program in the series, documenting legendary radio station CKLW. Willman also produced NPR’s coverage from Littleton, Colorado.
Audio Interview
Listen to Mr. Willman at Slate.com's Daily Podcast |
Download Mr. Willman's extended bio | Mr. Willman's
complete CV
Dave Franchina: Air Quality
Mr. Franchina focuses his practice on environmental and regulatory matters and has experience in a wide variety of substantive areas, including solid and hazardous waste, water and air pollution, wetlands and surface water reclamation, chemical regulation, environmental remediation, and occupational safety and health. In addition to representing numerous clients with respect to environmental permitting and compliance, he works with the firm's mergers and acquisitions, finance, real estate, and land use and zoning practices.
Video Interview
Download Mr. Franchina's extended bio | Visit K&L Gates
Rusty Rozzelle: Water Quality
Rusty Rozzelle manages Mecklenburg County’s Water Quality Program including a staff of 31 positions. The overall objective of the program is to protect and restore the quality and usability of surface water resources in Mecklenburg County, which has 190 miles of shoreline along the Catawba River and over 3,000 miles of streams.
Video Interview
Download Mr. Rozzelle's extended bio | Visit Charlotte-Mecklenburg
Storm Water Quality
Linda Rimer: Water Quality
Linda Rimer currently serves as the Liaison to North and South Carolina from the Region 4 office of the United States Environmental Protection Agency. In this capacity, she acts as a senior advisor to the Regional Administrator and Deputy Regional Administrator on environmental issues of significance within the two states. Linda previously filled a joint role in EPA Headquarters in Washington, DC, as Deputy Associate Administrator for Intergovernmental Relations and as Advisor for Sustainable Urban Environments. From 1993-1998, she was the Assistant Secretary for Environmental Protection for the North Carolina Department of Environment, Health and Natural Resources.
Audio Interview
Download Ms. Rimer's's extended bio | Visit the EPA Region 4 website
Neal Peirce
Neal Peirce is a foremost writer, among American journalists, on metropolitan regions — their political and economic dynamics, their emerging national and global roles. With Curtis Johnson, he has co-authored the Peirce Reports (now called Citistates Reports) on compelling issues of metropolitan futures for leading media in 25 regions across the nation. Reports of recent years include Boston Unbound, released in May 2004, a series for the Charleston (S.C.) Post and Courier, published serially in September and October 2007, and a series on the Charlotte Citistate for the Charlotte Observer and other papers of that region (a reprise of the authors’ 1995 report for that region), published in autumn 2008.
Audio Interview
Download Mr. Peirce's extended bio | Visit the citistates group website
Government and Public Services
Alex Marshall and Curtis Johnson
Curtis Johnson’s career plays on a split-screen - half devoted to being a leader in the public sector and the other half as analyst and commentator. His public service culminated with four years in the mid-1990s as chairman of the Metropolitan Council, which coordinates growth management and operates the transit and wastewater systems for the Minneapolis-St. Paul region of Minnesota.Following ten years as a college president in the 1970s, Johnson for eleven years led the Citizens League, a well known public affairs research organization in the Twin Cities; and then three years as policy adviser to then-Minnesota Governor Arne Carlson, including a period as chief of staff.
Alex Marshall is a witty, irreverent, and iconoclastic writer and speaker about cities and the forces that create them. Whether it’s a subdivision on a cul de sac or a great metropolis on a continent’s edge, Marshall seeks to understand and explain the places where we work and live. While many lecturers argue that citizens are at the mercy of larger technological and economic forces, Marshall insists we can control the destiny of our built environments if we understand them. In the last decade he has focused on transportation and other forms of infrastructure as the core DNA of cities and places. In his first book, How Cities Work: Suburbs, Sprawl and The Roads Not Taken, Marshall argues how we get around determines how we live. His most recent book, Beneath the Metropolis: The Secret Lives of Cities, explores what is physically underneath twelve major cities around the world.
Audio Interview
Download Mr. Johnson's extended bio |
Download Mr. Marshall's extended bio | Visit the citistates group website
Dr. Heather Smith
As an Urban Social Geographer my primary research and teaching interests revolve around the intersection between transitioning societies and restructuring cities. In addition to teaching courses such as Introduction to Urban Studies, Urban Social Geography and The Restructuring City, I have an active research agenda in the areas of immigrant settlement and adjustment and urban revitalization and gentrification. My immigrant based research, published in journals such as Urban Studies and the International Journal of Canadian Studies, has focused on intersections between concentrated poverty and immigrant neighborhoods in Canadian urban centers and explorations of the causes, processes and implications of Hispanic “hyper-growth” in Charlotte, NC and the broader US South. With Owen J. Furuseth, I am co-editor of Latinos in the New South: Transformations of Place (Ashgate, 2006).
My revitalization and gentrification work has focused on processes of socio-spatial polarization in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and most recently on the unusual trajectory of corporate-led gentrification in Charlotte’s Fourth Ward and central city core. In collaboration with Bill Graves, this work has been published in Southeastern Geographer and Journal of Urban Affairs and forms the springboard upon which a forthcoming co-edited book about Globalizing Charlotte is being developed. Graduate research assistants are integral to the success and rigor of faculty research endeavors and I welcome expressions of interest from current and future MA and Ph.D. students wishing to join one of my research teams.
Video Interview
Download Dr. Smith's extended bio | Visit UNC Charlotte Faculty Bio
David Swindell
Dr. Swindell is an Associate Professor of Political Science, as well as, Director of the Ph.D. in Public Policy program at UNC Charlotte. Dr. Swindell's expertise spans across multiple topics including urban governance, economic development, public finance, and citizen participation.
Audio Interview
Download Dr. Swindell's extended bio | Visit UNC Charlotte Faculty Bio
Carey Smith
Mr. Carey Smith is the City Manager for Rock Hill, SC. A native South Carolinian, Mr. Smith has been in his current position for over 6 years. Prior to becoming City Manager of Rock Hill, he worked both in the coastal region of SC and in Florida. As Manager, Mr. Smith works alongside the Rock Hill City Council to address the many issues and oppurtunities facing this growing region.
Video Interview
Visit the Rock Hill City Management website
Ben Hitchings
Ben Hitchings, AICP, is the Planning Director for Morrisville, NC. He holds a B.A. from Amherst College and a master's degree in city and regional planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has also served as the Land Use Program Manager for the Triangle J Council of Governments, an intergovernmental organization for local elected officials that works proactively on regional issues in order to sustain and improve quality of life.
Audio Interview
Download Mr. Hitchings' extended bio | Visit the Town of Moorisville website
John Day
The county manager, John D. Day, serves as the chief executive officer of county government. He is appointed by and responsible to the Board of County Commissioners. The county manager is charged with administering all county departments under the general control of the County Commissioners, preparing the annual budget and the five-year capital budget, and overseeing all county expenditures.
Other responsibilities include appointment of county officers (except those who are elected or whose appointment is otherwise provided for by law), coordinating intergovernmental activities, administering franchises (such as cable TV and solid waste collection), establishing administrative policies and procedures, and ensuring the effective and efficient operation of county government.
Audio Interview
Visit the Cabarrus County website
Business and Economy
Curtis Johnson
Curtis Johnson’s career plays on a split-screen - half devoted to being a leader in the public sector and the other half as analyst and commentator. His public service culminated with four years in the mid-1990s as chairman of the Metropolitan Council, which coordinates growth management and operates the transit and wastewater systems for the Minneapolis-St. Paul region of Minnesota.Following ten years as a college president in the 1970s, Johnson for eleven years led the Citizens League, a well known public affairs research organization in the Twin Cities; and then three years as policy adviser to then-Minnesota Governor Arne Carlson, including a period as chief of staff.
Audio Interview
Download Mr. Johnson's extended bio | Visit the citistates group website
Mark Farris
Mark Farris is the Executive Director of the York County, SC Economic Development Board. In this interview, Mr. Farris discusses important local and regional economic issues as it relates to growth and open space.
Audio Interview
Visit the York County Economic Development website
Terry Whitley
Terry Whitley, of Oakboro Main Street Development, provides an important perspective from the standpoint of the development community as it relates to growth and open space.
Video Interview
Nancy Gottovi
Nancy Gottovi is the Executive Director of Central Park. She earned her Ph.D. in cultural anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and has been an adjunct Assistant Professor at NC State University and UNC Charlotte. Dr. Gottovi has served as editor for the national Rural Education Finance Center’s Rural School Funding Report, director of the Heritage and Cultural Tourism Partnership of NC and Project Director of the NC Pottery Center. Nancy was a 1995 Fellow of the Rural Economic Development Leadership Institute and is currently a 2006-2008 William C. Friday Fellow for Human Relations. Nancy lives in northern Moore County.
Audio Interview
Visit the CentralPark NC website
Culture and Heritage
Alex Marshall
Alex Marshall is a witty, irreverent, and iconoclastic writer and speaker about cities and the forces that create them. Whether it’s a subdivision on a cul de sac or a great metropolis on a continent’s edge, Marshall seeks to understand and explain the places where we work and live. While many lecturers argue that citizens are at the mercy of larger technological and economic forces, Marshall insists we can control the destiny of our built environments if we understand them. In the last decade he has focused on transportation and other forms of infrastructure as the core DNA of cities and places. In his first book, How Cities Work: Suburbs, Sprawl and The Roads Not Taken, Marshall argues how we get around determines how we live. His most recent book, Beneath the Metropolis: The Secret Lives of Cities, explores what is physically underneath twelve major cities around the world.
Audio Interview
Download Mr. Marshall's extended bio | Visit the citistates group website
Thomas Hanchett
Dr. Tom Hanchett is staff historian at Levine Museum of the New South, corner of 7th and College streets in uptown Charlotte. Among his projects is the permanent exhibition Cotton Fields to Skyscrapers, named best new exhibit in the southeastern United States, and the current exhibition on Charlotte’s swirl of newcomers, Changing Places-- www.changingplacesproject.org. Tom writes frequently on Southern history, from city planning to soft drinks, and he is author of the book Sorting Out the New South City: Race, Class & Urban Development in Charlotte, 1875 – 1975 (UNC Press 1998).
Audio Interview
Visit Levine Museum of the New South
Autumn Rierson Michael
Autumn Rierson Michael is a historic preservation attorney and consultant in North Carolina. As an instructor at UNCG, Autumn is an active participant and advocate in the region towards issues related to culture and heritage. For this interview, she will focus the discussion on how issues of growth and open space intersect with historic preservation.
Video Interview
Community Well-Being
Neal Peirce
Neal Peirce is a foremost writer, among American journalists, on metropolitan regions — their political and economic dynamics, their emerging national and global roles. With Curtis Johnson, he has co-authored the Peirce Reports (now called Citistates Reports) on compelling issues of metropolitan futures for leading media in 25 regions across the nation. Reports of recent years include Boston Unbound, released in May 2004, a series for the Charleston (S.C.) Post and Courier, published serially in September and October 2007, and a series on the Charlotte Citistate for the Charlotte Observer and other papers of that region (a reprise of the authors’ 1995 report for that region), published in autumn 2008.
Audio Interview
Download Mr. Peirce's extended bio | Visit the citistates group website
View or listen to interviews with regional and national experts on selected
topics and explore their interconnections with issues of growth and open
space. Interviews run 15- 20 minutes and are conducted
by UNC Charlotte faculty member Cheryl Spainhour, who teaches journalism
in the Communication Studies department. Production development is provided
by UNC Charlotte Urban Institute’s
Matthew Clontz.
Interviews Page.
The Resource Manual puts at journalists’ fingertips a wealth of information
for generating story ideas and researching stories on growth, open space,
and related issues. Organized by the nine topics, the Resource Manual includes
contact information and website links for organizations actively working
in each topic area. Bibliographies provide quick reference to prominent
journals, books, or articles in each field. National awards programs and
annual conferences may yield “best practices” examples or experts who can
provide context and comments for a story. Also found in the Resource Manual
is a section on the 2006 Regional Opinion Survey commissioned as part of
the Reporting on Growth and Open Space program.
Resources Page.
An important aspect of the Knight Foundation grant that has made this program
possible is evaluating the program based on journalists’ feedback. Please
let us know what you think of the program, the Resource Manual, interviews,
roundtables, and seminar materials by clicking here.
Feedback Page.
