Description:
As part of the 1997 Charlotte Housing Survey, the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute conducted an omnibus survey of housing code enforcement practices in 18 cities are around the nation. Though this was not a scientific surveyor analysis, some interesting results emerged. The
questions and answers are shown on the following pages.
The cities to be surveyed were selected primarily by size and geography. Many of them are similarly sized to Charlotte and/or located in the Southeast region of the United States. Other
cities were selected because they were known to provide strong code enforcement for their communities. The areas range in size from 105,000 for Columbia, SC, to 1,100,000 for Phoenix, AZ. Table 1 shows the size of the cities and the number of housing units in their jurisdiction.
Prior to conducting the survey, the Urban Institute consulted with the City of Charlotte Neighborhood Development Key Business to draft the questionnaire and select the cities. A UNC Charlotte Department of Geography student intern called the code enforcement department in each of the cities and asked the administrator to respond to questions over the phone. In some cases, answers were faxed or mailed to the Urban Institute. The data were collected in late 1996 and early 1997.
Selected Findings
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