North Carolina trends: geography, population, income, and education

Introduction

Inspired while reading North Carolina beyond the connected age: the Tar Heel State in 2050 by Michael L. Walden, I decided to explore and visualize demographic aspects of NC, limiting myself to current and historical data from the US Census Bureau and the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. I have not dabbled in future projections, since the significant changes over the last 20-40 years provide plenty to think about.

As I write this in late 2022 and early 2023, significant portions of the 2020 Census data are not yet available. For 2020 and 2021 data I used the 2020 decennial “PL” data released for use in redefining the nation’s political maps (“redistricting”) along with the five-year American Community Survey (ACS) ending in 2019 or 2021 and ACS 2021 monthly estimates (aggregated to yearly amounts). Education data comes from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction.

–Daniel Moul