environment
Developed land
Why this matters
Developed land measures how much of the land has been built up with houses, roads, parking lots, stores, and other hard surfaces. Mapmakers often call these surfaces "impervious" because water cannot soak through them the way it does through soil or forest floor.
Some development is necessary and good, since it is where people live, work, and shop. But when developed land spreads quickly across a region, it can pave over forests, farms, and wildlife habitat. Hard surfaces also send rainwater rushing into streams and trap heat.
Watching the share of developed land over time is a clear way to see urban growth and sprawl. In the Charlotte region, rising developed land helps explain traffic, lost green space, and pressure on natural areas.
About the Charlotte region
This explorer covers the 14-county, two-state Charlotte region (11 North Carolina and 3 South Carolina counties). Many of these indicators connect to a defining regional story: a landmark Harvard study ranked Charlotte last, 50th of the 50 largest U.S. metros for economic mobility (a child raised in the poorest fifth had about a 4.4% chance of reaching the top fifth), a finding that launched the region's Leading on Opportunity agenda. Updated 2024 data show Charlotte has since climbed to 38th.
Opportunity here is also unevenly mapped. An affluent “wedge” fanning southeast from uptown holds a large majority of the city's wealth on under a quarter of its land, while a ”crescent” to the north, west, and east carries higher poverty, a legacy of redlining, exclusionary zoning, and highway routing that recurs across the race, income, health, tree-canopy, and school maps in this tool. No single indicator is good or bad on its own; together they describe how the region sorted opportunity.
Companion resources: Charlotte-Mecklenburg Quality of Life Explorer · UNC Charlotte Urban Institute · Opportunity Atlas · Methods & sources
Learn more
- USGS — National Land Cover Database usgs.gov
The standard U.S. map of land cover, including developed and impervious land.
- USGS — Annual National Land Cover Database usgs.gov
Yearly snapshots back to 1985 for seeing urban growth over time.
About the data
Derived from the USGS National Land Cover Database (2001–2021), a 30-metre satellite land-cover product. Tract values are area-weighted zonal statistics (exact pixel fractions) of the classified raster. As a wall-to-wall classification it carries no sampling margin of error.
Source: U.S. Geological Survey, National Land Cover Database (NLCD).