Title: How Segregation Affects Charlotte, NC | Leading on Opportunity
Headings: 
A Cross-Cutting Factor
We may have inherited obstacles to opportunities put in place over generations, but we have the power and responsibility to ensure this same inheritance is not left for our children and youth.
Charlotte followed a similar pattern of segregation that many Southern cities experienced following the Reconstruction Era.
How We Got to Where We Are: Our Segregation Story
Similarly, deep racial and economic separations have persisted in our education system.
The cumulative effects of systemic racial and economic discrimination, as well as the re-segregation of public schools, have largely maintained and, in some cases, exacerbated a sharply segregated housing market.
The deep disparities we describe represent sharp differences between opportunity-rich and opportunity-poor neighborhoods.
Breaking Down Barriers
By lifting all those in Charlotte-Mecklenburg to a higher level, we may find that we inadvertently elevate ourselves as well.
Task Force Strategy A
Key Recommendations
The lens provides a set of principles, reflective questions and processes that focuses at the individual, institutional and systemic levels. It helps decision makers pay disciplined attention to race and ethnicity while analyzing problems and seeking solutions. Equity lens can be adapted for use by all sectors.
Implementation Tactics and Policy Considerations
Special Note About the Reduction of High Poverty Schools
There is no doubt schools are the sites where disparities show up, but they can hardly be held solely responsible for the disparities themselves.
Task Force Strategy B
Address the complex, multi-faceted issue of school segregation with a systems approach.
Key Recommendations
Implementation Tactics and Policy Considerations

Content: For example, we have a digital divide in which many children and youth living in low-opportunity areas do not have access to computers or the Internet in their homes. This places them at a disadvantage for doing homework and virtual learning. These geographic inequities are, to a great extent, the direct outcome of structures that have existed for generations. Damaging policy failures, such as those in housing, education, transit and lending practices, as well as in the fields of criminal justice and immigration, have stimulated deep social segregation by both race and class and the resulting barriers they have created. Our community is stellar at supporting charitable causes, but at the end of the day, people tend to retreat to their respective corners of work and home. This continues to perpetuate the segregated nature of our city and strips away the possibility of extending social capital to underserved communities as a means of improving upward mobility. Breaking Down Barriers
The Task Force believes breaking down barriers to equality and forging new bonds that will enhance and strengthen our community are within our collective capacity. Our world is more interconnected than ever; we must recognize our own successes are uniquely tied to the success of others in our community. By building communities where people of all socioeconomic backgrounds have access to quality housing, high-level education, jobs and transportation, we ensure all of us thrive together.