Last May, the following message went out over the Food Policy Network’s (FPN) listserv. “We are working to put together a process for network mapping one of our local food policy councils’ COVID response efforts. (The) purposes are to document the networks that were developed and the associated outc … Read more

Community and economic development has increasingly required participation from community members to be effective. Ensuring high levels of engagement throughout the design process is crucial to producing a product that serves the needs of the community. A creative approach to problem solving might b … Read more

For the past five months I served as a visiting scholar to the University of Ghent in Belgium.   The link between food insecurity, a particular focus on my work in North Carolina, and larger overall economic insecurity issues has been getting increased focus across a number of European countries. Be … Read more

It seems like almost everyone, including regulators and utility organizations, recognize the benefits and need for expanded partnerships and collaboration in the water and wastewater sector. Small towns are finding it difficult to meet their growing infrastructure and regulatory needs and are talkin … Read more

One might say that the local foods movement or “locavorism” is all the rage. We’ve done several posts here on the CED Blog about local food systems as they relate to community economic development. I posted a while ago about the local foods movement as community economic development. Sybil Tate wrot … Read more

In the wake of the recent mega-storm Sandy, we hear a lot of discussion about “community resilience.” RAND Corporation defines community resilience as “the sustained ability of a community to utilize available resources to respond to, withstand, and recover from adverse situations.”  Hurricanes, tor … Read more

Vaughn Mamlin Upshaw is a Lecturer in Public Administration and Governance at the UNC School of Government. In a previous post, I offered seven strategies for creating a successful economic development advisory board. This post continues that discussion by expanding on the importance of clarifying e … Read more

Rick Morse is a School of Government faculty member. In my last post I highlighted the importance of interlocal cooperation as a key strategy for local governments to “do more with less.” I would like to share a couple of short articles that connect to this line of thinking and make a connection to … Read more

Vaughn Mamlin Upshaw is a Lecturer in Public Administration and Governance at the UNC School of Government. Almost monthly there’s a news report about an elected board being out of step with one of its appointed boards. Most recently the complaint was that a county board of commissioners had little … Read more

Rick Morse is a School of Government faculty member. Continuing state budget problems, combined with shrinking tax bases and the reduction in federal aid work together to put local governments in long-term fiscal crisis. The responses of local governments to this fiscal crunch have significant conse … Read more