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Raleigh tops Milken city rankings

Continuing the housing theme, Raleigh’s relative affordability was a big factor in its jump to the No. 1 spot on the Milken Institute’s rankings of the country’s best-performing cities. Raleigh had been knocking at the door of the top spot for a few years, but made it this year in...

By Ray Gronberg

January 16, 2025

The Realtors’ agenda

This brings us to the NC Realtors, which led off Tuesday’s NC Chamber economic forecast forum with a presentation about our state’s housing market and its wish list for addressing its problems. The group will has a fuller report coming out next month, but Realtors legislative chair Brooke Cashion said...

By Ray Gronberg

January 16, 2025

NC Chamber economic forecast

The Federal Reserve needs to clamp down on inflation now even if the cost is pushing the U.S. economy into a recession, UNC Charlotte economist John Connaughton says. Speaking at the NC Chamber’s annual economic forecast, Connaughton said that without counting energy and food costs, the underlying inflation rate is...

By Ray Gronberg

January 15, 2025

Easley Jr. named to Golden LEAF board

Among former Gov. Roy Cooper’s last moves was to appoint Michael Easley Jr., the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, to the Golden LEAF Foundation board. Two of Cooper’s five appointments to the 15-member board were up on Nov. 30. Darryl Moss, former mayor of Creedmoor, is leaving the board...

By Ray Gronberg

January 15, 2025

California and disaster aid

Speaking of California, it’s probably a good time to note that every member of that state’s congressional delegation who voted on it supported the federal hurricane relief bill that cleared Congress just before Christmas. All but six of California’s 52-member U.S. House delegation and one of its two U.S. senators...

By Ray Gronberg

January 14, 2025

Causey and California

The main lesson of the ongoing fires in California is that it’s counterproductive to “artificially hold down the true cost of insurance,” N.C. Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey says. As they have with Florida, insurers have pulled out of the California market for homeowners insurance because they can’t recoup the costs...

By Ray Gronberg

January 14, 2025

NCInnovation picks Wells to manage endowment

The board of NCInnovation has hired Wells Fargo to serve as the nonprofit’s investment adviser. The move came last week, and complied with a state-law requirement that NCInnovation use an outside firm to “manage and invest” the endowment legislators seeded with $500 million in taxpayer money. Wells was one of...

By Ray Gronberg

January 14, 2025

N.C. League of Municipalities and downzoning

To a complete lack of surprise in some quarters I’m sure, the folks at the N.C. League of Municipalities wants to see Senate Bill 382’s restrictions on downzoning rescinded. “We’re hoping they strike the provision and recognize that whatever was attempting to be accomplished here, this was not the way...

By Ray Gronberg

January 14, 2025

Whither I-40?

Business North Carolina and N.C. Tribune reader Matthew Eisley is at it again, urging officials to take Hurricane Helene as a signal to rethink some of the decisions they made years ago about western North Carolina’s infrastructure. Trib readers will recall that in early October, Eisley pointed out that local...

By Ray Gronberg

January 13, 2025

Downzoning

Senate leader Phil Berger has signaled he’s open to at least considering changes to a provision in Senate Bill 382 that bars cities and counties from downzoning land without the owner’s consent. “I’ve heard from a number of [Senate] members who have heard from constituents with some questions,” said Berger,...

By Ray Gronberg

January 13, 2025

RealPage anti-trust lawsuit update

You’ll recall that back in August, lawyers for the federal government, North Carolina and seven other states filed an anti-trust lawsuit alleging that Texas-based RealPage is helping landlords engage in price fixing. Well, there are new developments. On Tuesday, the feds and the states amended the suits to add six...

By Ray Gronberg

January 10, 2025

Lavonia Allison

Gov. Josh Stein has joined others in publicly mourning the Jan. 7. death of Dr. Lavonia Allison, a longtime leader of the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People. With her passing, “we lost an icon,” Stein said via on social media. “She was a fierce and strong leader — a...

By Ray Gronberg

January 10, 2025

Fire in LA

After getting home from Wednesday’s opening of the General Assembly, I cooked dinner and sat down to watch my hometown burn. The fires in Los Angeles have rapidly become a disaster on the scale of another Hurricane Helene, with an early damage guesstimate of up to $57 billion that will...

By Ray Gronberg

January 10, 2025

Advocacy firms roll out new collaboration

A trio of Raleigh-based advocacy firms joined forces to launch a new partnership they say will move beyond “the antiquated model of lobbying.” Integrated Advocacy Partners is the fruit of a collaboration between Walk Up Advocacy, Capitol Resources of North Carolina, and Kohn Associates. Walk Up’s co-founders, Abby Hammond and...

By Ray Gronberg

January 9, 2025

Toyota plant update

Toyota is conducting pre-production trials at its Randolph County factory in the completed building that’s scheduled to start churning out batteries for its hybrid-electric vehicles by the early spring. That’s the word officials at the N.C. Department of Transportation have received. They are in a position to know because the...

By Ray Gronberg

January 8, 2025