Gastonia

About 45 minutes from Charlotte in neighboring Cabarrus County, the owners of 1,000-acre Porter Farms raise chickens and pigs on part of their land. The chickens are sold to Tysons Foods, and the pigs become sausage, pork chops and spare ribs for Smithfield Foods. Another part of the property is a cattle farm, and since […]

Can philanthropy foster greater regional connection? Yes, according to our research for the Carolinas Urban-Rural Connection project. But it’s not just the movement of money that matters, say local leaders: it’s the regional exchange of ideas about how to put that money to work that seems to make a difference. Community foundations, by definition, have […]

To move up the ladder of opportunity, there’s generally consensus that people need jobs that pay a living wage, where they can grow their earnings over time. But what’s the best way to get workers, especially low-income workers with barriers such as low educational attainment, connected to those jobs? That’s the focus of the ReCONNECT […]

While Duke was building the world’s largest electrical network in the Western Piedmont, some Charlotte mill owners recognized that more money could be made loaning money to aspiring industrialists than making cloth themselves.

From an agrarian system to an economy based on rural mills and factories drawing workers from former farms and sending goods to Charlotte for distribution, the region undergoes rapid change. 

A growing web of infrastructure and physical connections – both within the wider region and between the region and the outside world – has had a profound effect on where growth went, and where it stayed away from. People and industries in the Carolinas Urban-Rural Connection study area followed trading paths, railroads, highways and, now, air service.

Redevelopment of textile mills across the Carolinas has increased in the past decade as local officials have been able to offer state tax credits for properties listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In Charlotte and across the region, mills have been turned into condos and apartments, senior housing, offices, shopping complexes and restaurants. […]

Photographer Nancy Pierce created this photo gallery of some of the murals found in many of the small towns and cities throughout the Charlotte region. Some were 1976 U.S. Bicentennial projects; others are just a few years old: Kings Mountain: This mural in the Cleveland County town of Kings Mountain was completed in June 2000 by […]