Opinion
We need more housing options
We can attract even more professionals, families, retirees, and other folks to our state if we lean into one of our competitive advantages: housing options.
News
A highway runs through it: Farmers, landowners question effects of planned bypass
Property owners in one of the few remaining rural areas of fast-growing Wake County are questioning plans to build a bypass for U.S. 401 that would dissect several long-time family farms. The plan — orchestrated by the N.C. Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization — could expand the corridor to 19 miles of highway from Banks...
Opinion
Gaining altitude and industry in central coastal North Carolina
It was a mid-November day in 1980. I was sitting in the co-pilot seat of the Cessna 180 Marine Fisheries floatplane riveted on the scene in front of me. We were traveling south, flying under the radar of the Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station, mere feet above a vast expanse of black needle rush...
News
Auditor questions Local Government Commission bond move for Bald Head Island
State Auditor Beth Wood is questioning a plan by the Local Government Commission to sell bonds to buy the assets of the Bald Head Island Transportation System, saying the body needs to verify system valuation before placing the applications on the agenda. Wood sent a letter to State Treasure Dale Folwell on Nov. 15, insisting...
Opinion
Families are swinging suburban
People have recalculated the risk-reward ratio and concluded that living in a lower-density environment is more attractive than it used to be.
Video
Manhattan Institute’s Eric Kober discusses U.S. metropolitan jobs-housing mismatch
Eric Kober, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, discusses his new report on “The Jobs-Housing Mismatch: What It Means for Metropolitan Areas.” Learn more here: “N.C. fares well in new study comparing job growth to housing.”
News
Who determines energy policy in North Carolina?
Are offshore wind farms a job creating investment that makes North Carolina’s energy portfolio more environmentally friendly? That is debatable, but, more important, who gets to make the call one way or another? Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson doesn’t think it should be the left up to one partisan politician, and so, when Gov. Roy Cooper...
Opinion
Will hybrids drive the economy?
One recent study projects that home-based work will account for 20% of full workdays in the United States, up from 5% before the COVID crisis.
News
House approves amendment to restrict eminent domain amendment, strengthen property rights
A supermajority of the N.C. House has approved a proposed constitutional amendment to strengthen private property rights against eminent domain land takings. The proposed amendment, House Bill 271, would hit the ballot in 2022. The bill passed the House, 101-17, Thursday, March 25. Eminent domain, Jon Guze has written, “refers to the government’s power to...
News
Watchdog criticizes $7 million Guilford County will give for improvements around High Point ballpark
A government watchdog criticized a plan by the Guilford County Board of Commissioners that could send $7 million to High Point to help pay for improvements around Truist Point ballpark, home of the High Point Rockers minor league baseball team. Now that the board has a Democratic majority, it decided to help pay for improvements...
News
Appeals court decision may end ‘slush funds’ for governor, executive branch
The N.C. attorney general can’t keep and distribute money from a settlement over hog waste that leaked and overflowed from lagoons. A split 2-1 panel of the N.C. Court of Appeals, in an opinion issued Tuesday, Dec. 15, ruled money resulting from a settlement between Smithfield Foods and the N.C. attorney general must flow into...
Opinion
Are counties taking the lead in solar plant pushback?
North Carolina’s installed solar power is second only to California’s. Some may cringe at the thought of following California’s energy policy, given the rolling blackouts imposed there. Solar power seemed like an attractive option in 2007, when the Democrat-controlled legislature handed Democratic Gov. Mike Easley a bill that provided sweeping incentives to encourage solar power...
