North Carolina Migration

Today, North Carolina 's eastern counties continue to lack the modern transportation infrastructure needed to improve safety, maintain quality of life and support economic progress required in the 21st century. There are 32 counties east of Interstate I-95. If we do not consider Interstate I-40, 28 of these coastal counties, which represent a total population of nearly 1.3 million according to 2010 US Census data, have no interstate access whatsoever even though North Carolina currently maintains over 1300 miles of interstate routes through the rest of the state. This despite its residents that paid taxes directly and indirectly into a system for more than 5 decades. The time has now come for the state to invest in the propose interstates

Although settlement began in earnest a century or so after that in Virginia, North Carolina 's early development followed a similar pattern. Virginia 's first settlement and Capital was in Jamestown. Not long afterwards the Old Dominion 's Capital was moved up the James River to Williamsburg as farming proved more successful inland. As the population continue to shift westward, its Capital moved once more to Richmond. What the James River is to Virginia, the Neuse River is to North Carolina. New Bern was established as the Capital of colonial North Carolina. Early settlers of North Carolina quickly moved inland and developed farms up the Neuse Basin and found towns such as Kinston, Goldsboro, Raleigh and beyond. By the late colonial period a significant population was already inland. More than two centuries ago, the battles of Alamance and Guilford Courthouse occurred over 100 miles from the coast. Even George Washington noted during his 1791 tour of the southern states that North Carolina was settling further westward as the agriculture was more productive inland at that time. But the story of the Coastal Plain does not end