On Tuesday, Democrat N.C. Attorney General Josh Stein announced that Walmart agreed to settle with North Carolina and other states regarding their part in the country's ongoing opioid crisis. The settlement requires Walmart to pay $3.1 billion to the states in the agreement. North Carolina will split the settlement with 42 other states. According to Stein's release, CVS and Walgreens may announce similar settlement agreements soon.
Trouble is coming, downtown Raleigh business owners say. It’s a certainty. Those businesses are preparing for the worst case scenario after the election. One way or another. Nov. 3, Election Day, is already contentious, with each political party accusing the other of undermining the integrity of the election. Several states, including North Carolina, are tied...
Smokable hemp continues to stall lawmakers trying to pass the farm bill. The Senate unanimously voted Tuesday, Oct. 1, to reject the House’s version of the 2019 Farm Act, which would ban smokable hemp by May 2020. Now, it’s up to the House and Senate on whether they will appoint conferees to sort out the...
RALEIGH — The “street food” scene hasn’t arrived in a big way in Raleigh, where city council members fear it would hurt local restaurants and just wouldn’t “look right.”
RALEIGH — North Carolina’s traffic congestion could double in the next couple of decades, with Charlotte drivers facing the same types of delays Chicago drivers face now. That was the conclusion of a 2007 John Locke Foundation report. It recommended $12 billion of spending to clear North Carolina’s congested urban roads and prepare for future traffic growth. Many traffic problems outlined three years ago continue to cause concerns today. Randal O’Toole, senior fellow with the Cato Institute, recently tackled the issue from a national perspective in the book Gridlock: Why We’re Stuck in Traffic and What to Do About It. O’Toole discussed the book in a presentation for the John Locke Foundation’s Shaftesbury Society. He shared some of its themes in an interview with Mitch Kokai for Carolina Journal Radio.
Don't look now but the Portland experiment with strict land use controls is having the desired effect of driving up the cost of living and pricing out families. How soon before Charlotte follows?
RALEIGH — Author Douglas Morris and other “smart growth” advocates say that suburban sprawl contributes to increased violent-crime rates. But a comparison of crime rates among cities characterized as smart growth and “sprawlers” shows a different story. And a study of Raleigh showed that street robberies were less likely in neighborhoods having sprawl-associated features such as cul-de-sacs, high rates of home ownership, and single- family homes. In other research notes, former NYPD officers are using innovative techniques to fight crime across the country, public housing authorities are requiring public service, and activists are exaggerating the extent of hunger in the U.S.
RALEIGH — Onerous urban planning is driving former Portland, Ore. residents across the Columbia River into Vancouver, Wa., according to a community development director who warns that the story of those two states and two cities should serve as a caution to other urban centers. Richard Carson, director of community development in Clark County, Wa., said Oregon’s mandated state land use planning from the 1970s has turned “the Mecca of American urban planning” into what he says the media now calls “Little Beirut.”
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK — Kay McClanahan wishes she could scan the horizon around her South Carolina farm and blissfully enjoy the green pastures and beautiful horses. But under the guise of preserving open space, local “smart growth” activists and politicians have used rural down-zoning to deny infrastructure to the area outside a new urban growth boundary. It also imposes large-lot zoning, buffer zones, and other restrictive rules. McClanahan and others who live in the area fear their land will be rendered worthless to buyers or legally manipulated away from them altogether.
RALEIGH — Over the past two decades, the term “smart growth” has become part of the national lexicon. Used frequently by policymakers and activists, the term describes a planning vision for transportation and development that purports to preserve the American dream of home ownership, mobility, and freedom. On Jan. 10, the Center for Local Innovation will host “Innovate 2004: Preserving the American Dream in North Carolina,” a discussion of what’s in store for the state if smart-growth policies continue to be implemented. Transportation and growth experts from around the nation will speak at the event in RTP.
