Description:
In 1995, the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute and the Foundation For The Carolinas partnered with the Charlotte Observer and other regional newspapers to publish " The Peirce Report ," co-authored by Neal Peirce, Curtis Johnson and Alex Marshall (now part of The Citistates Group). This unique journalism series, involving the Observer and five other regional newspapers, took an in-depth look at the Charlotte region and some of the challenges and opportunities it faced around the issues of leadership, growth, workforce and neighborhoods. Thirteen years later, many regional policy makers still cite the 1995 report and its findings in discussing regional issues, and at least one regional initiative, the Lee Institute's Charlotte chapter of the American Leadership Forum, still uses the report extensively in helping its participants understand the Charlotte region.
Thanks to a generous grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation , the Charlotte region is one of the first to experience a "revisit" by The Citistates Group, out of over two dozen metropolitan regions in the United States to have previously been the focus of a "Citistates Report." The vision for this update came from the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute as part of its new Charlotte Regional Indicators Project , a quality of life benchmarking initiative launched in 2007. However, the 2008 Citistates would not have been possible without the financial support of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the editorial and graphic support of the Charlotte Observer , and the commitment of the nine other regional newspapers and three periodicals who ensured that this would truly be a regional journalistic collaboration: The Herald of Rock Hill, Charlotte Post, Gaston Gazette, Independent Tribune (Concord and Kannapolis), Lake Norman Times, Mi Gente, News at Norman, Salisbury Post, Shelby Star, Business North Carolina, Charlotte Magazine and Greater Charlotte Biz .
In addition, a number of institutions partnered with the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute to assist the Citistates Group in identifying key regional issues and in coordinating interviews with policy makers and business leaders throughout the fourteen county region. These institutions included The Lee Institute, the Centralina Council of Governments, the Catawba Regional Council of Governments, and the Charlotte Regional Partnership.
The 2008 Report: The 2008 Citistates report on the Charlotte Metro Region ran in consecutive monthly installments, from September to December 2008, in the Charlotte Observer and several other regional newspapers. With the central theme of: “Great, Green and Global,” the report’s authors, Neal Peirce and Curtis Johnson, from the Citistates Group, provided an extensive regional analysis of the Charlotte Region and its greatly expanding opportunities and challenges related to growth and sustainability. The report also offers recommendations on how the region should respond in order to position itself for success.
The report not only identifies areas where the Region may be falling short, since the 1995 Peirce report, but it also highlights the positive steps the Region has taken and offers thoughts on how the Region can leverage its expanding resources to maintain and improve quality of life and economic opportunities. More importantly, the 2008 report sets the stage for a Regional dialogue about the future.
The debate and discussion that the Report provokes allows citizens and leaders across the Region to think critically about future decision-making and the path we should follow in order to build upon and secure a vital future.
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