You rarely read about major growth in North Carolina without Charlotte or the Research Triangle being mentioned in the same breath. Charlotte has long been a banking powerhouse, while the Research Triangle, home to Research Triangle Park, has established itself as a center for technology and biotech. Yet within the state’s central region, the Piedmont Triad (Greensboro, Winston-Salem and High Point) is enjoying a quiet boom.
No boom happens overnight. More importantly, a single event doesn’t account for growth like this.
Here’s a pretty honest assessment of what’s driving the Triad: there are a number of factors, primarily good planning and good infrastructure, that are causing corporations to choose the Piedmont Triad for relocations. That, and people want to live here. And right now, that’s a lot harder to do in larger metropolitan areas.
The Rise of Advanced Manufacturing and Logistics
The Triad has long been known as an industrial economy and the heart of North Carolina’s textile industry. When textile manufacturing declined and mills closed or relocated, the region had to rebuild around something else. Over the past few years, heavy industry has given way to advanced manufacturing, aerospace, and alternative energy production. Much of that development isn’t happening on the outskirts of town, as you might expect. It’s showing up in existing regional facilities and large commercial and industrial buildings scattered throughout the Triad, along the region’s corridor of highways, including many sites located along the interstate and close to established transportation systems…