Sitting at the crossroads of two Native American trading paths, Charlotte, N.C., has always been a city of commerce (Bank of America has its headquarters here, as did Wachovia previously).

Skyline of downtown Charlotte. Photo by John Ashley via Flickr.

While Charlotte was growing during the boom times of the last decade, poverty was less visible. Today, it's not only more visible, it's at the heart of two critical issues facing the city: educating our children and providing affordable housing for our residents. Like most of the country, Charlotte has seen unemployment rates rise over the past few years and more than 15.8% of Charlotte's nearly one million residents are currently living in poverty. In May 2009, a study found 2,989 homeless children enrolled in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system.

Susan Patterson, program director for Charlotte, says Knight has begun investing in projects to address these critical issues.

The Urban Ministry Center's Moore Place project will provide permanent supportive housing for chronically homeless men and women. It's one piece of a continuum of services needed to reduce the number of people in over-crowded shelters in the community.

Knight's investment in Citizen Schools is supporting public education by extending the learning day with citizen teachers. The middle school students learn new skills, and the volunteers learn more about the needs and desires of public school students.

Patterson is hopeful that momentum is growing to address these critical issues and credits the city's new mayor, Anthony Foxx, for making them part of his agenda.

SochiReporter, a 2008 Knight News Challenge winner, was presented in 240 McDonald's restaurants throughout Russia.

The fast-food chain placed hundreds of thousands of leaflets on every food tray of every patron over the course of 14 days.

The leaflets, which included SochiReporter's logo and URL, informed customers of SochiReporter's support of McDonald's World Children's Day, and also thanked its other media partners.

The partnership brought 35 percent more visitors to SochiReporter.com and 30 percent more content uploads by citizen journalists.

SochiReporter launched in October 2009, allowing the people of Sochi, the Russian resort city hosting the 2014 Olympics, to use the latest online tools to discuss and influence the impact of the Games.

--Marly Falcon, contributing blogger of Knight Foundation

Steven Waldman, senior advisor to FCC Chariman Julius Genachowski, talked with Broadcasting & Cable's John Eggerton last week about his view on the future of media and the government's role in it.

Waldman is charged with creating a report on the current state of the media and the information needs of communities.' The report will include recommendations for FCC and government policies.

Journalism is one part of it, but it is broader than that. We have been using the phrase "information needs of communities," which is borrowed from the Knight Commission [which produced a report on the future of journalism]. The reason we did that is because when you are looking at the future of media now, you need to look not only at traditional journalistic enterprises, but things like whether the government is providing information in ways that make it easier for journalists doing accountability journalism or make it easier for citizens to hold institutions accountable. That is why we are using lingo that is a little bit broader than just local news.

Waldman is quick to point out that the FCC will not be offering a bailout for either traditional or new media, but that it has a responsibility to figure out what the government should do to preserve the public-service and democratic functions that the media provides.

You can read the entire Broadcast & Cable interview here. The Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy report is available at http://report.knightcomm.org/.

The FCC has launched a website for The Future of Media and the Information Needs of Communities in a Digital Age at http://reboot.fcc.gov/futureofmedia. Americans are encouraged to offer their comments and opinions on the site.