State of change

I want to share some observations regarding the changing face of my adopted state. We have spent some time over the last few days hiking through the heart of North Carolina’s once robust textile industry. It was impossible to ignore the hulking shells of buildings that once housed vibrant textile operations looming over the waterways in the Piedmont. Although there is great potential in these buildings, many have fallen into disrepair. We live in a renovated textile mill in Raleigh; however some of the mills we saw do not have the benefit of being located in a thriving metropolitan area. These more remotely located mills are not deemed worthy of reinvestment and are deteriorating to the point of no return.

Debra and Dave hiking past an old mill along the Haw River

Our home at Historic Caraleigh Mills, built in 1892, renovated in 2003

This is a sad fate for these structures and surrounding mill villages, but there were also a few exceptions. Although the mill appears to remain vacant, the mill village around Glencoe has been painstakingly preserved as a quaint, although somewhat isolated neighborhood. The Eno River Mill has also been renovated as commercial space, but appears to remain a work in progress.

Glencoe Mill village

All of this illustrates the growing divide between urban and rural NC. The cities of Raleigh, Charlotte, Durham, Asheville, Greensboro, Winston Salem, Greenville and Wilmington are growing and thriving, while the surrounding rural areas are trying to figure out how to survive. Debra grew up in a small town in eastern NC and we spend a lot of time discussing this topic and there are no easy answers.

There is a way of life in these rural areas that the residents want to preserve, but the lack of economic opportunity in many of these areas makes it difficult to maintain. Debra works for a non-profit that promotes the excellent public university and community college system in NC. We see the opportunities they offer not as a way out of these communities, (although that clearly happens) but as a way to learn job and leadership skills that will help reinvent communities on the decline.