The problem
Open the conversation
Elena
Half the Opportunity Zones on this list are just empty land. I need the ones people can actually get to, not the ones that look good on a tax form.
Charlotte, NC
What would you like to map?
Ask in plain English. NeuraCities finds the data, runs the GIS and shows every step.
Site selectionFlood riskZoningParks access
Ask anything about a place…
All posts
InvestmentTransit
Which of Charlotte's Opportunity Zones actually have transit?
Seventeen census tracts carry the Opportunity Zone label. The tax form treats them the same. The bus map does not: one has 64 stops, another has 9.
The NeuraCities Team August 24, 2026 4 min read
Elena's instinct was that the tax map and the transit map disagree. Marcus put the question to NeuraCities, and the answer is a ranking of all seventeen zones by how many stops sit inside them.
How the zones were ranked
Three layers from Charlotte's open data portal:
- The 17 Opportunity Zone census tracts, with their population and area.
- 2,722 CATS bus stops and the 17 LYNX Gold Line streetcar stops.
- Every stop was assigned to the zone it falls inside, bus and rail were counted separately, and the two counts were added into one transit score per zone. Tract 40 leads with 64 stops; Tract 16.06 has nine. The map shades the zones from light to dark by that score, and the chart ranks the top eight.
What to ask next
Stop counts are a proxy. Add the Blue Line light rail stations, weight by route frequency, or drop zones that are mostly highway right-of-way, each as a follow-up in the conversation. The ranking will change; the minute it takes will not.
The real conversation
Charlotte Opportunity Zones Near Transit
Everything above is this conversation. Open it to see the sources, steps and layers, and ask the next question yourself.