Background
Diversity, inclusion, and social justice are core community values in Chapel Hill and Carrboro. Yet, our community has become more exclusive and exclusionary over time. As a result, today our community is wealthier than it was in the past, as our local policies have worked against these values to price out many members of diverse communities.
Policy Ideas + Solutions
NEXT supports reversing exclusionary policies that have reduced our community’s diversity. We support changing local policies on land use to reduce our housing shortage to provide more spaces for people from all walks of life to live. We also support increasing investment in transit to serve all communities, making mobility possible without access to a car.
Much of our community only allows land to be developed as single family homes. This inherently reduces housing choices and forces people to have more money to buy a home. To the extent that wealth and race are (unfortunately) highly correlated in the United States, policies that restrict density also inherently reduce diversity.
Policies that allow for greater density also allow for lower-income households to “team” together to share the cost of living on expensive land, and have access to our community amenities, including the high-performing Chapel Hill-Carrboro school system.