Where in NC are the Most Distressed Communities? According to New Report, Look to Urban Areas

<p>The Center for Urban and Regional Studies (CURS) at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill recently released a new report challenging the common idea that rural areas are the most distressed in the state.   Instead, the report highlights urban areas as the most distressed. The data in the report should be helpful for Community Economic Development (CED) professionals in urban areas who need evidence of where troubled areas are located and how deeply distressed they are.</p> <p>The report, North Carolina’s Distressed Urban Tracts: A View of the State’s Economically Disadvantaged Communities, can be found through the CURS website found here. It adds depth to the normally broad-brush picture of economic development need across the state that comes from using aggregate data.   The most important take-away from the report is understanding that while poverty and other markers of distressed communities may be more prominent in rural areas overall, the depth of the distress in pockets of urban areas is greater than that found in rural areas. In other words, the majority of severely distressed areas – those neighborhoods facing the toughest development challenges– are found in North Carolina cities, not in unincorporated areas.</p> <p>North Carolina has 18 urban areas (as defined by the U.S. Census), and every one contains at least one distressed area. A distressed area is a census tract (an established geographic area that generally includes around 4,000 people) with unemployment equal to or greater than 14.5%, annual per capita income that is approximately $17,000 or less, and a poverty rate equal or [...]</p>