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Data showing that the community surrounding Portia Mills Hines Park has the lowest life expectancy in Wilmington is stark. But what does that reality look like up close—and what’s being done about it?

In this episode, Shoresides speaks with Dr. Mayra Galeano, the chief medical officer at a clinic close to the problem. She tells us what it's like to provide care in the community. The clinic is open to everyone, serving Black and Latino residents among others—and patients don’t need insurance.

Learn more

• MedNorth Health Center: https://mednorth.org

Learn more about the Coastal Journalism Hub: http://www.coastaljournalism.org/

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“New Hanover County has one of the highest shares of households without vehicle access in North Carolina—about 6 percent—according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey,” transportation expert Andrés Otero wrote in an article for WHQR last year. “People without access to a car often include college students, older adults, and others who either cannot afford a vehicle or are unable to drive. In Wilmington, these groups make up a significant portion of the population. The same data also show that in both the Northside and Southside neighborhoods, more than a third of households have no vehicle access.”

In this episode, Otero talks with Shoresides about living without a personal vehicle—and what that experience reveals about how cities like Wilmington function for pedestrians and bicyclists. He also discusses what it would take to build a city that works for everyone, not just drivers.

Learn more

• Andrés’ Substack: https://andytalksurbanism.substack.com
• WHQR article: https://www.whqr.org/local/2025-04-28/walking-and-bicycling-in-wilmington-and-north-carolina-face-significant-funding-barriers-says-advocate

Learn more about the Coastal Journalism Hub: http://www.coastaljournalism.org/

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Recently, the Wilmington StarNews and Cape Fear Collective dug into Wilmington, N.C.’s life-expectancy gap. It turns out there are similar disparities regarding the city’s pedestrians. “Wilmington consistently has one of the highest annual pedestrian crash rates in NC. From 2011–2020,” says the 2023 Walk Wilmington Pedestrian Plan. The majority of crashes involving pedestrians occurred in areas with higher concentrations of minority residents and higher poverty rates compared to the county average.”

Abby Lorenzo of the Wilmington Urban Area Metropolitan Planning Organization and Justin Carter, assistant director of engineering for the City of Wilmington, explain what’s called the “pedestrian high injury network" and what’s being done about it.

Learn about this work and about the Coastal Journalism Hub at www.coastaljournalism.org

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In this episode, Shoresides talks with Vanessa Gonzalez about what it means when people looking for help can’t easily tell the difference between a real attorney and a convincing impersonator — and why immigration law, with its limited pathways and high stakes, is a particularly easy place to run the con.

We also hear from Adonia Simpson at the American Bar Association Commission on Immigration, which has dealt with its own impersonation scams, and from Reuters investigative tech reporter Jeff Horwitz, whose reporting on Meta helps explain why taking down fraud can be harder than you’d think.

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North Carolina’s latest congressional map is part of Republicans’ efforts nationwide to gain more seats in the House of Representatives ahead of the 2026 election.

Right before Thanksgiving, federal judges ruled against local advocacy groups and voters who have challenged the map on the basis of racial gerrymandering.

This decision, along with rulings in states like Texas, could be setting a precedent of more blatant partisan gerrymandering in the future.

In this episode, I spoke with Sarah Michels, a reporter with Carolina Public Press. She covers state politics and elections, and has closely followed NC’s new congressional maps accused of racial gerrymandering.

This is the third part of a series on redistricting in eastern North Carolina.

Part 1 | Part 2

Host / Producer: Layna Hong

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Ahead of the 2026 Election, North Carolina’s Republican lawmakers — at the request of President Trump — have passed a new congressional map intended to squeeze out one more Republican seat in Congress.

The new map will also make it more difficult for northeastern Black voters to elect their preferred candidate.

In this episode, we break down what’s happening and how it’s playing out in the courts. We talk to Chistopher Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University. Then, we hear from two of the plaintiffs on the lawsuit against state Republican lawmakers for the newest map: Bob Phillips from Common Cause and Dawn Daley-Mack of the Northampton County NAACP.

This is the second part of a series on redistricting in eastern North Carolina.

Listen to the first part here

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North Carolina’s Black Belt is a cluster of northeastern counties known for its rich soil and history. And now, it’s the site of one of the most enduring issues in the state: redistricting.

But this isn’t the first time that the region has been redistricted to disenfranchise Black voters.

In this episode, we go back to the turn of the 20th century, when white supremacists dismantled “The Black Second,” or North Carolina’s first majority-Black congressional district. This event would set up a century-long struggle between Black voters and those in power who sought to disenfranchise them — a struggle happening to this day.

Shoresides talked to two eastern North Carolinians. David Cecelski is a historian and storyteller from Carteret County who has written countless works on coastal NC. James Williams Jr. is a retired lawyer who grew up in the Black Belt — Plymouth, to be exact — during the Jim Crow era and Civil Rights Movement.

This is the first part of a series on redistricting in eastern North Carolina.

Host / Producer: Layna Hong

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When a million-dollar beach house in the Outer Banks collapses into the surf, it looks like a sudden disaster. But for the people who study coastal risk, it’s anything but. In this episode, we talk with Travis Klondike of NC State’s Coastal Dynamics Design Lab about why.

Links:

Coastal Dynamics Design Lab (CDDL) at North Carolina State University

https://design.ncsu.edu/research/coastal-dynamics-design-lab/

Five homes lost in a day highlight the growing cost of inaction on NC erosion

https://www.wral.com/weather/5-homes-lost-nc-outer-banks-erosion-october-2025/20481590/An

Photo taken May 10, 2022, showing portion of a collapsed house and debris in the ocean and on the beach at 24265 Ocean Drive, Rodanthe. (NPS Photo)

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