Introducing Growth and Dreams

A newsletter with notes, trends and stories on economic development, demographics and bridging divides in a diverging nation

Welcome to Growth and Dreams, a new newsletter by me, Chuck McShane. I’m an economic researcher and a storyteller in North Carolina. My plan for this space is for stories about growth - economic, urban, educational; past, present and future.

A note about the title:

All growth begins as a dream. A vision to see something where nothing yet exists. To replace fumbling with fluency. To make the unimaginable obvious.

But whose dreams become reality? And who even gets to dream in the first place? In this era of slowing mobility and and winner-take-all markets, these questions are increasingly urgent.

Framing economic growth in terms of dreams fulfilled, delayed or thwarted can breath humanity into what might seem dry statistics, revealing people behind the numbers.

I’ll aim to post weekly at first, but we’ll see where it goes.

Sign up now so you don’t miss the first issue, coming the week of August 17.

In the meantime, tell your friends!