Low wage workers are core to the U.S. economy and often serve in vital front-line occupations related to childcare, food service, retail, personal services, transportation, and agriculture. Women and people of color, especially Black and Hispanic residents, comprise a large portion of the low-wage w … Read more

It is not unusual for North Carolina CED professionals to constantly assess elements critical for local economic growth and community enrichment: public-private partnerships, social capital relationships, placemaking, infrastructure needs and available affordable housing are just a few. This week, a … Read more

Almost 15 years ago, a brief CED blog post highlighted several resources for supporting or attracting local grocery stores, especially ones in rural areas.  Much more recently, a CED post highlighted the various ways CED professionals interact with food systems overall. This post brings North Caroli … Read more

In the past year, activity around local food systems increased dramatically. Government has been involved in supporting food systems for decades, but primarily through programs adopted at the federal level to both promote food production and protect the health of consumers. But having government wor … Read more

“Remote work is here to stay,” says a 2022 Forbes article. Research by McKinsey & Company released in June 2022 reveals that 58 percent of Americans reported having the opportunity to work from home “at least one day a week,” and 35 percent had the option to work from home “five days a week.” Ac … Read more

The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA) is a wide-ranging law that provides federal funding in areas ranging from child care to higher education to community service to relief for shuttered venues to a restaurant revitalization fund. Separate from those programs, one component of ARPA distribute … Read more

Real estate ownership is one of the primary vehicles for wealth creation in the United States, and consequently one of the core drivers of the racial wealth gap after generations of disinvestment in and displacement of BIPOC communities. Andre Perry, senior fellow at Brookings Institution and author … Read more

In the final post of this three-part series (Part I and Part II can be found here and here), the CED blog will explore the economic impact of startups on North Carolina’s economy and recent trends. If Amazon were to choose the Triangle for its HQ2, it is almost hard to imagine the impact it would ha … Read more

Part I of this three-part series covered the co-working concept and what additional resources business incubators can offer.  Now in part II, the CED blog will take a deep dive into three of North Carolina’s business incubators, specifically HQ Raleigh, Launch Chapel Hill, and American Underground i … Read more

Hearing talk of “angel investors” looking for “unicorn companies” by grown adults sitting in a circle cross-legged on a polished concrete floor might not seem like business as usual, but this new way of doing business is quickly gaining traction. The startup community in North Carolina appears to be … Read more