UNC researchers launch resource for pandemic recovery

The COVID-19 pandemic — and recession — have profoundly affected the lives of North Carolinians.

The Carolina Tracker project is a website offering day-to-day information on how North Carolinians’ lives have changed since the onset of the pandemic. Produced by faculty, staff and students in the department of city and regional planning, Carolina Tracker presents easy-to-use, publicly-available data for policymakers and North Carolinians to use.

Datasets available at the Carolina Tracker site include:

• Layoffs, labor force participation and unemployment insurance
• Small business revenue, business closures, office space vacancy and local tax revenue
• Vehicle travel, commuting and personal mobility
• Evictions, home sales, construction and foreclosure filings
• Childcare, police stops and air quality

Policymakers and the general public can use Carolina Tracker’s visualization tools to investigate changes in trends over time or view maps that show geographic patterns across North Carolina.

The team has also composed a series of data stories, blogposts meant to help users understand the economic, health and social impacts visible in datasets.

The team is led by city and regional planning faculty members Noreen McDonald, Nikhil Kaza and Nichola Lowe.

The project was sponsored by the North Carolina Policy Collaboratory.

Learn more at carolinatracker.unc.edu.