Editor’s Note: You can’t visit a school district in North Carolina without hearing about the lack of affordable housing for educators, a pattern exacerbated by the pandemic as city dwellers purchased property in the mountains and on the coast as well as by the expansion of short-term rentals, like Air B&B, statewide.
EdNC retained David Cruz to analyze housing patterns across four states at the census-tract level.
We wanted to be able to compare patterns in North Carolina to states in the southeast, and in these three other states there are also GRA organizations who can take the data and use it to inform public policy. Brian Straessle with The Sycamore Institute and Ryan Hankins with Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama designed the scope of work.
We also wanted to pilot an approach to see if we conducted the research, would other nonprofits, corporations, philanthropists, and policymakers working on housing challenges and opportunities analyze it and use it in their own work. To that end, Cruz has included an interactive portal at the end of the ArcGIS StoryMap to all of the data.
Email me at mrash at ednc.org with feedback, how you use the data, and ripple effects.
View the StoryMap in full screen.
