While not directly related to our discussions of sustaining organizing, a report released earlier this year in North Carolina certainly has serious implications for communities. The Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation supported the production of Documenting of Poverty, Economic Distress, and Challenge in North Carolina. It was submitted by the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, January 15, 2010.

The report looks at a state that has faced drastic changes even if there had not been economic upheaval. In a generation, from the 1980s to now, North Carolina saw rapid population growth and a change from a rural based state to an urban majority. Look at a North Carolina map and you will note numerous significantly sized cities spread across the east and middle of the state. A population map indicates that rural areas are losing relative to growth, some have actually declined demographically. In another generation, if the patterns hold, North Carolina will have a population of 13 million. The study includes analysis of trends in African-American and Hispanic communities.

 It is in the contributing factors of poverty that make this an important paper to read. You can compare education levels to areas of household and family poverty rates, severe urban conditions, declining population and economic stress. The report includes a section on unemployment and another on dislocation. The latter matter, dislocation, is a serious concern because the economy has forced internal migration. Workers may leave behind what little support structure they have to move to an unknown environment.

While not directly related to our discussions of sustaining organizing, a report released earlier this year in North Carolina certainly has serious implications for communities. The Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation supported the production of Documenting of Poverty, Economic Distress, and Challenge in North Carolina. It was submitted by the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, January 15, 2010.

The report looks at a state that has faced drastic changes even if there had not been economic upheaval. In a generation, from the 1980s to now, North Carolina saw rapid population growth and a change from a rural based state to an urban majority. Look at a North Carolina map and you will note numerous significantly sized cities spread across the east and middle of the state. A population map indicates that rural areas are losing relative to growth, some have actually declined demographically. In another generation, if the patterns hold, North Carolina will have a population of 13 million. The study includes analysis of trends in African-American and Hispanic communities.

It is in the contributing factors of poverty that make this an important paper to read. You can compare education levels to areas of household and family poverty rates, severe urban conditions, declining population and economic stress. The report includes a section on unemployment and another on dislocation. The latter matter, dislocation, is a serious concern because the economy has forced internal migration. Workers may leave behind what little support structure they have to move to an unknown environment.

The report notes: “Place-based economic strategies should provide special focus on economic distress in: 1) chronically-poor, largely rural counties; 2) highly-distressed areas of generally more prosperous urban centers; and 3) communities experiencing the situational poverty and unemployment resulting from dramatic economic change and dislocation.”

You can find the report to read by clicking here.

Posted by Walter Davis

You can find the report to read by clicking here.

Walter Davis