Urban Investment Strategies Center Director Jim Johnson and UNC Professor Jeanne Milliken Bonds assess the link between childcare systems and U.S. economic and social health, highlighting the way the pandemic has underscored the critical connection – especially in rural and low-income communities.

North Carolina’s 100 counties have experienced an uneven pattern of growth and development over the past decade or so, even during the pandemic, when the state was a magnet for migration. At one end, metropolitan and amenity-rich counties captured most of the growth between April 1, 2020, and July 1, 2021; at the other, 21 counties experienced net out-migration. Given these disparities, the Urban Investment Strategies Center offers an approach using targeted economic development strategies.