COVID-19 has created enormous challenges for communities, households, workers, and businesses in North Carolina. A team of researchers from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has launched a website called Carolina Tracker: A Resource for Recovery, which includes a dashboard to track indicators across different domains such as employment and the economy, travel patterns, real estate, and society.

In addition, interpretations of these trends can be read in analytical stories such as “Layoffs Return To Pre-Pandemic Levels ” and “Home Sale Indicators Show Strongest Growth In A Decade, But Lagging Supply Is Cause For Concern.”

“This new website contains assembled datasets from various public and private sources to track over 30 indicators ranging from housing market performance to economic vitality,” said Nikhil Kaza, associate professor of city and regional planning. “Some datasets use administrative records, while others scrape data from the web or use passive cell phone traces.”

The website captures rich information on travel patterns including trips to grocery stores, restaurants, and bars. The datasets are freely available to download in the “About” section of each indicator. The site will be updated with new indicators as they become available.

This project was supported by the North Carolina Policy Collaboratory at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with funding from the North Carolina Coronavirus Relief Fund, established and appropriated by the North Carolina General Assembly.

The project team is led by Kaza, Nichola Lowe, and Noreen McDonald from the Department of City and Regional Planning, working with a team of consultants and researchers.