South By North Strategies, Ltd.

A recent article in The Greensboro News & Record explored the increases in economic hardship that are resulting from the recession.  Reports the newspaper:

From 2000  to 2008 , [the number of poor families in Greensboro recorded] a jump of 3.5 percent , well above the increases in Charlotte  and Raleigh  and tied with Greenville, S.C. , for fourth-highest in the nation.
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“It’s a pretty sad story,” said Keith Debbage , a professor of geography at UNCG . “We were frankly turning the corner, then got hit flat  on our back by the national recession.”
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What’s more, a recent study by the Brookings Institution  projects the area’s poverty rate will rise from 14.1 percent to 17.4 percent  when the 2009  numbers are released.
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That will mean an additional 23,000  people in Guilford , Randolph  and Rockingham  counties are  living in poverty.