The N.C. Rural Economic Development Center faces the most uncertainty since it was created in 1987. The state Senate wants to close the powerful grantmaking agency, while the House seeks to increase its funding. Meantime, a recent scathing two-part series in the Raleigh News & Observer brought up a host of questions about the Rural Center’s value to N.C. taxpayers and businesses.
Carolina Journal raised many of these same questions 15 years ago in “Urban Cowboys,” an investigative report by Don Carrington and Andrew Cline. To read this prescient examination of the Rural Center, click here for a PDF of this pathbreaking story.