James Ford and Lori Thomas, UNC Charlotte

A new series of reports from the Urban Institute at UNC Charlotte took a closer look at who has wealth in the Charlotte region and who doesn’t. The series of reports tried to understand where the wealth gap came from, taking a look at bank lending policies, transportation policy, housing policy, business ownership, and savings to try to understand how we got to where we are. In this First in Future episode, we are joined by two people who played a key role in the reports, James Ford, former NC Teacher of the Year and currently executive director of the Center for Racial Equity in Education and Dr. Lori Thomas, the Director of Research and Faculty Engagement at the Urban Institute and Director of the Institute for Social Capital.