MARY LOUISE KELLY, Host:
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Mary Louise Kelly.
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President Obama will be talking about the economy today in Charlotte, North Carolina. Charlotte was thriving just three years ago. Post-recession, the economic news is less rosy. From member station WFAE, Julie Rose reports.
JULIE ROSE: The president is coming to Charlotte at an uneasy time.
QUENTIN TALLEY: With library closings, teachers being laid off and budget cuts, we are definitely at a crossroads.
ROSE: Unidentified Woman #1: Tonight we definitely have the opportunity to come together and talk about what it is that we'd like to do.
ROSE: A community group organized the gathering after the county government announced it will be $85 million short next year. Half of Charlotte's libraries may close. Hundreds of teachers could lose their jobs. The county's budget director, Hyong Yi, paints a bleak picture.
HYONG YI: We cannot afford the government that we have. We cannot afford the services that we have. The tax base isn't there. And we don't see things getting better for two to five years.
ROSE: Leaving the meeting, lifelong Charlotte resident Bob Brown seemed dazed.
BOB BROWN: I never expected that, because I always thought it would keep growing and growing and improving, but this is a real setback.
PAM JOHNSON: Everything just seemed a lot bigger and glossier a couple of years ago than it does right now. It's just sort of heartbreaking.
ROSE: Bank of America is headquartered here. Wachovia was until the crisis forced it to merge with Wells Fargo. Charlotte has lost 10,000 financial services jobs in just two years. That's been a blow to the city's pride, and its bottom line.
MARK VITNER: This recession seems to have really hurt us in all of our most vulnerable parts.
ROSE: Mark Vitner is a senior economist at Wells Fargo. Pick an industry that's really struggling right now, and he says, Charlotte's got it: banking, commercial lending, law firms that support those industries, home construction, heavy manufacturing. And it's not really that those industries are hurting more in Charlotte than anywhere else in the country.
VITNER: But relative to other areas, Charlotte has been hit a little bit harder, probably because it was a little loftier at the height of the boom.
ROSE: Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx is eager to see new sectors grow, as a counterbalance to the big banks.
ANTHONY FOX: We will continue being a strong financial services center. We'll continue being a good manufacturing and distribution center. But we will also do what previous generations of Charlotteans have always done, which is to figure out where the economy's going and find a way to be relevant to it.
ROSE: Unidentified Woman #2: Window four please.
ROSE: What it won't do is ease the rising burden of unemployment at places like this, Charlotte's Crisis Assistance Ministry. This is where hundreds of people line up everyday to get help paying their rent and utility bills.
LOUISE KELLY: I talked with your landlord this morning. We'll send $500 so you can move back in.
ROSE: For NPR News, I'm Julie Rose.
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