. . . "The most revealing findings are as follows:??????the county population has increased from 354,656 in 1970 to 613,310 in 1997??????in 1970 the school district was the forty-third largest in the nation and is today the twenty-third largest??????among cities with more than 500,000 people, Charlotte ranks second in population growth in the 1990s??????the racial composition of the county has changed fr" .