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

CED officials prioritize good service. But are they undercutting their own efforts, increasing service availability on one hand but making it difficult to actively use the services on the other? A number of recent national reports, commentaries and even teaching case studies have raised the issue of … Read more

The following are articles and reports on the web that the Community and Economic Development Program at the UNC School of Government shared through social media over the past month. Follow us on twitter or facebook to receive regular updates.     Items of interest related to CED in North … Read more

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

Why would you, as a local CED professional, hesitate to bring in a federal or state program to your community? Why do some federal and state programs struggle to recruit and maintain local partnerships? Many federal and state programs rely on community-based partners to implement and/or deliver serv … Read more

This past weekend my wife and I took a short trip out to the mountains for our anniversary. Among our activities was peddling all 34 miles of the Virginia Creeper Trail, a beautiful gem stretching from White Top, through Damascus, to Abingdon, Virginia. In 2014, the Trail was inducted to the Rail-to … 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

The photo was eerily familiar to anyone interested in CED.  The headline from the New York Times article on September 20, just days before the German national election, read, “Merkel Says Germans ‘Never Had It Better.’ But Many Feel Left Behind.”  The accompanying photo by Gordon Welters, shown here … Read more

The cost of installing solar panels has been in steady decline since 2010, and the residential market for solar panel installations on home roofs is experiencing rapid growth. With growing demand and several policy incentives for solar installations, incorporating solar power into real estate develo … Read more