As a magnet for both population and employment growth, North Carolina has a propitious opportunity to create an inclusive and equitable entrepreneurial and small business ecosystem to support the state’s newfound prosperity.
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.
On Jan. 7, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper announced a sweeping new executive order that aims to achieve net-zero emissions within 30 years while protecting and empowering North Carolina’s underserved communities. Urban Investment Strategies Center Director Jim Johnson, who serves as chairman of the N.C. Department of Environmental Justice and Equity Board and as a member of the task force on social, economic and environmental equity, accompanied Cooper at a press conference in support of the order at N.C. A&T State University. Read Johnson's statements here.
A new study estimates that more than 3,600 children in North Carolina have lost a caregiver due to COVID-19. Urban Investment Strategies Center Director Jim Johnson believes communities haven’t started to process just how much these losses have impacted them.
While the COVID-19 pandemic was devastating for many, research shows its impact was not felt equally. Black Americans experienced disproportionate health and economic ramifications, which compounded the financial, social and psychological strain many felt pre-pandemic, and have contributed to growing inter-generational wealth disparities. In today’s Kenan Insight, our experts explore whether the multi-trillion dollar “Build Back Better” plan proposed by the Biden administration holds the potential to begin closing pervasive gaps in American society.
Urban Investment Strategies Center Director Jim Johnson shares how he’s leveraged lessons learned while growing up poor in the segregated South to benefit others throughout his distinguished career.
The nursing profession in the United States was experiencing a labor shortage and facing diversity and inclusion challenges prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Magnifying these problems was a shift in the nation’s population, both geographically and demographically. The result was changes in both where nurses are needed in the healthcare system and the nursing skill set required to address healthcare needs of a far more diverse clientele of patients—in terms of race, ethnicity, sex, gender identity, age, living arrangements, socioeconomic status and primary language.
In a recent Triangle Business Journal article, Urban Investment Strategies Center Director Jim Johnson and UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School Professor Jeanne Milliken Bonds discuss why Americans are increasingly turning to companies with purpose and ethics, and provide a corporate reputational equity checklist to help organizations move toward greater diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) practices.
For African Americans and individuals from other historically underrepresented groups, work cultures can be difficult to navigate. In a new white paper, The Seven "What Matters" In a System Not Designed for Us, Urban Investment Strategies Center Director Jim Johnson draws upon his 40 years of experience in academia to offer strategies for individuals in these groups to thrive within work cultures that do not fully embrace and may even be antagonistic to diversity and inclusion.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has recently ramped up efforts to keep immigrants from entering the country and force out some who are already here – arguing these to be necessary measures to contain the spread of COVID-19 and protect American jobs. However, in this Kenan Insight, we summarize why these policies risk having exactly the opposite effect, harming the future health, social well-being and economic viability of our nation.
Knowledge of our changing demography can serve as both foundation and frame for how to achieve greater social, economic, environmental, and health equity in North Carolina. After describing how disruptive demographics are transforming the our state, this essay highlights a set of equity issues undergirding our shifting demography and concludes with a set of tools and strategies to make North Carolina a place where equity, inclusion, and belonging is the new normal.
On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. Within two months, nearly half a million people fled hard-hit New York City. Will they return once the crisis has passed? In this Kenan Insight, we explore how the ongoing pandemic is raising questions about the future attractiveness of large cities as places to live and do business.