Great Smoky Mountains Expressway And Skyland
Foundations
Everyday Life
Environment
Cost & Opportunity
Scores run 0–10 and center on the state median
Fair Housing. Race, ethnicity, language, national origin, income, disability, household makeup, commute and vehicle access, home tenure, and similar characteristics shown anywhere in this report are descriptive context only — never used to rate, score, or rank a place. Using protected-class characteristics to evaluate a neighborhood may violate the Fair Housing Act.
North Carolina·
Fair Housing. Race, ethnicity, language, national origin, income, disability, household makeup, commute and vehicle access, home tenure, and similar characteristics shown anywhere in this report are descriptive context only — never used to rate, score, or rank a place. Using protected-class characteristics to evaluate a neighborhood may violate the Fair Housing Act.
Darker bands = more cultivars thrive at that zone; the line marks this address (zone 7b). Open a category, then a plant, for its cultivars.
A satellite-based map classifying every 30-meter patch of the US into land-cover types — forest, wetland, developed land, farmland, and open water — updated every few years.
A satellite-based measurement of how much of a neighborhood's ground is covered by tree canopy — a signal of shade, urban cooling, and green character.
High-resolution elevation data from a national lidar program, used to calculate a neighborhood's average altitude, hilliness, and terrain ruggedness.
A federal inventory of every wetland in the US — marshes, swamps, bogs, and coastal estuaries — mapped by the Fish and Wildlife Service.
A scientific map dividing North America into ecological zones that share similar landscapes, climates, and plant communities — used here to provide regional ecological context.
A government map dividing the country into zones based on average winter cold, telling you which plants can survive outdoors year-round in a given neighborhood.
Satellite measurements of artificial light at night, used to indicate how dark the sky is and assign each neighborhood a Bortle dark-sky rating.
Modeled estimates of how much human-made noise intrudes on the natural soundscape in each neighborhood, produced by the National Park Service.
A global database of over two billion biodiversity observation records contributed by scientists and citizen naturalists, showing which species have been spotted in and around a neighborhood.
The national inventory of permanently protected public lands — national parks, forests, wildlife refuges, and state parks — showing how much protected land is near a neighborhood.
A detailed federal map of every river, stream, lake, pond, and canal in the country, used to measure how close a neighborhood is to freshwater.
Ground-station readings of soot and ozone that show how clean or smoggy the air typically is near a place.
A federal inventory of how many pounds of toxic chemicals industrial facilities release into the air, water, and land each year, reported by the facilities themselves.
The EPA's national screening tool that ranks neighborhoods by their exposure to air pollution, toxic releases, and proximity to hazardous sites, relative to the rest of the country.