Many 2010 slayings were in one area, northwest of uptown: "(By Cleve R. Wootson Jr., cwootson@charlotteobserver.com) While Charlotte and the nation continued to report falling violent crime in 2010, a pocket of older neighborhoods northwest of uptown had an unsettling spike in killings.
Nearly a third of the 59 homicides in Charlotte-Mecklenburg last year happened in a cluster of poor and working-class neighborhoods that are battling drug traffic, gun violence and gangs."