Executive director, Shannon Binns, was interviewed for an article in the Charlotte Business Journal about Charlotte's reaction to the national low ranking of our Parks. 

By The Charlotte Business Journal 

"It’s the more suburban parts of our city that were built in more recent decades, in the last 40 to 50 years, where we essentially built single-family home subdivisions and there was not a city plan to make sure that, as we grew outward, we were integrating parks into the fabric of the neighborhood," said Shannon Binns, founder and executive director of nonprofit Sustain Charlotte.

Also, he added, the city of Charlotte does not have a parks and recreation department — that's a sole function of the county — but the city does control land use, including approving developments and zoning.

"Since they don’t have a budget for acquiring land and building parks, there’s obviously a disconnect," Binns continued. He noted that the city manager did include $54 million in the proposed 2020 fiscal year budget to fill a funding gap identified earlier this year for the Cross Charlotte Trail: the money earmarked in next year's budget would nearly complete the trail, save for two segments.

Read the full article here.