In April 2018, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) officially rebranded their Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant program to Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD). Begun in 2009, the TIGER program has provided transportation improvement … Read more

In the state of North Carolina (NC), 80 out of 100 counties are rural. In fact, among the 10 most populous states, NC has the largest proportion of individuals living in rural areas, ranking second only to Texas. Despite the sizeable rural population, factors that drive density and growth in communi … Read more

Money may not literally grow on trees, but a glance at North Carolina’s rural economies reveals that cash crops sprout not just in our long-cultivated cotton and tobacco fields: they now also root in the steep hillsides of northwestern Christmas tree farms and navigate the waters flowing through the … Read more

The Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust is framing a new place-based initiative around an important question related to the long-term prosperity and vitality of rural communities in the state: What if rural North Carolina was a healthy place? For example: • What if fewer people suffered from diabetes? … Read more

In the early 1900s, an estimated 15 million acres of agricultural land in the U.S. was owned by African Americans. Just a fraction of that land – about 1.5 million acres – is still black-owned and used for agriculture today. Each year, about 30,000 more acres are lost, driven primarily by a lack of … Read more

In the Town of Elk Park, a rural mountainous community of 453 residents in western North Carolina, the Town Hall currently operates out of an 80-year-old single-family house. Numerous attempts to update the facility have left the building in a state of non-compliance with the Americans with Disabili … Read more

There is a popular notion that people find living near energy generation facilities undesirable.  There are concerns about health, odor, and aesthetics, to name a few.  But does living near electricity generation impact property values? Recently, researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laborat … Read more

Anne Bacon is Senior Director for Workforce Development at the N.C. Rural Economic Development Center. “Green, do you want a job?”  Kehoni Green had just crossed the stage at Nash Community College’s graduation when he was approached by the chief of the Nashville Fire Department.  The training and c … Read more