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If you live in North Carolina today, it’s hard not to notice the booming changes in population and industry. Residents in towns throughout the state talk about the astonishing changes that have happened just in their lifetimes.
The State Library of North Carolina has launched a new digitized collection of reports created throughout the 1960s that speak to future town planning and urban development of North Carolina counties, cities, neighborhoods and lakes. The collection, titled “Up and Out: Urban Development in North Carolina,” is available at http://statelibrary.ncdcr.gov/digital/upandout/index.html.
“From histories to maps to photographs, you’ll find a 1960s snapshot of your North Carolina hometown in the Up & Out collection,” said Mary Boone, State Librarian.
Partially funded through a federal urban planning grant under the Housing Act of 1954, these reports were the product of efforts by the Division of Community Planning under the North Carolina Department of Conservation (now the Department of Environment and Natural Resources). Counties and towns would contract with the state to develop an urban planning program, part of which involved studying a designated community or area and then presenting its findings to local leaders.
These reports detail communities throughout North Carolina and provide a footprint for future urban development. Many contain comprehensive maps of cities and their business districts. Also common are demographic statistics, photographs, descriptions of local establishments, land use surveys, growth projections, and development suggestions. The reports selected for digitization provide a summarized, rich and readable look at communities around the state at a time before North Carolina’s identity and populace were about to enter a period of diversification that continues today.
New reports will be added to the Up & Out collection in the future. The digitization of the reports, performed by the Internet Archive staff headquartered at UNC-Chapel Hill, is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under provisions of the federal Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) as administered by the State Library of North Carolina.
The State Library (http://statelibrary.ncdcr.gov/index.html) is a division of the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, the state agency with the mission to enrich lives and communities and the vision to harness the state’s cultural resources to build North Carolina’s social, cultural and economic future. Information on Cultural Resources is available at www.ncculture.com.
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