housing
Homes built since 2010
Why this matters
This measure shows where new construction is happening. It is the share of homes built in 2010 or later. This is a fixed cutoff tied to a construction year, not a rolling "last 10 years," so the same vintage line stays put as time passes. A high share points to places that have added a lot of housing since 2010.
New construction matters because adding homes can ease housing shortages and help keep prices and rents in check when demand is rising. It also shapes neighborhoods, schools, roads, and local services that have to keep pace with growth.
A low share is not a problem by itself; many established, desirable areas have older housing. Reading this across the region shows which communities are expanding quickly and which are largely built out.
In Charlotte, where new housing has gone is as telling as how much. The LYNX Blue Line light-rail corridor catalyzed an estimated $1 billion-plus and roughly 10 million square feet of development, adding homes near transit but also raising concerns about displacing longtime, lower-income residents.
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
- U.S. Census Bureau — Why We Ask: Year Built census.gov
The year-built question used to gauge housing age and where newer homes are.
- UNC Charlotte Urban Institute — How the Blue Line Extension changed development ui.charlotte.edu
Documents the investment and displacement pressures along the light-rail corridor.
- U.S. Census Bureau — Characteristics of New Housing census.gov
National data on newly built homes, including size, features, and prices.
About the data
Calculated from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates (2014–2024), at the Census-tract level, with margins of error. ACS 5-year vintages overlap year to year, so the series is a rolling estimate; compare only non-overlapping periods.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates.