IN THEIR PLACE.

• Position: James Kleckley's index - Statistical Data Included

The Charlotte, Triangle and Triad regions continue to set the pace. But the mountains are on the move.

It's no surprise the big regional partnerships continue to lead the economy. Charlotte, with its financial industry, anchors the Carolinas Partnership. The Research Triangle Regional Partnership is technology-driven, and the Piedmont Triad Partnership is heavy in manufacturing.

But the most improved in the past two years, according to an index created by economist James Kleckley, was AdvantageWest, a group of 23 western counties. It moved from fifth to fourth by improving its score by 0.7. The Research Triangle score made the same jump but remained second. The biggest drop was by the Global TransPark Region. Kleckley, president of Greenville-based Problem Solving Research Inc., attributes that to 1999's Hurricane Floyd.

Kleckley's index combines latest-year statistics with those of five years ago, factoring in jobs, income, unemployment, retail sales and food stamps. He then ranks counties and partnerships in each category, from 1 to 100. The index is the average of those rankings, so lower is better.

While the three large partnerships still dominate, closer examination of the county index shows that growth isn't limited to the state's largest cities -- Charlotte, Raleigh, Durham, Greensboro and Winston-Salem. Currituck County in the poorly performing Northeast partnership is among the top five in the state. Avery, Clay and Jackson counties, all part of AdvantageWest, finished among the state's top 10.

Don't look to Charlotte-based Nucor Corp.'s $380 million steel plant in Hertford County, which brought 220 jobs, to change the rankings any time soon. "That's really one of the limitations of the rankings, because we're not looking at capital investment," Kleckley says. "If you look at Nucor, it's a huge investment, but not a whole lot of people are going to be working there."

Still, he hopes Nucor will attract other development, leading to greater tax revenues for school improvements and services that will make Hertford County more desirable. "That's part of what's going on in development these days," Kleckley says.

Which means spreading the wealth in North Carolina's economy will happen in small bursts, and the Big Three will remain securely atop the rankings for a long time.

VITAL SIGNS Counties in the state's three major metro areas fared best, but two coastal counties -- New Hanover and Currituck -- also excelled. Two years ago Rank Regional Partnership Score Score Rank 1 Carolinas Partnership 2.2 2.4 1 2 Research Triangle Regional Partnership 2.3 3.0 2 3 Piedmont Triad Partnership 3.4 3.7 3 4 AdvantageWest 4.0 4.7 5 5 Southeast 4.8 4.7 5 6 Global TransPark Region 5.1 3.8 4 7 Northeast Partnership 6.1 5.8 7 ADVANTAGE WEST POPULATION (in 000s) COUNTY 1990 2000 [*] 2010 [*] Alleghany 9.6 9.9 10.2 Ashe 22.2 24.4 26.4 Avery 14.9 15.9 17.1 Buncombe 175.0 197.9 217.5 Burke 75.8 83.8 92.2 Caldwell 70.8 77.0 83.8 Cherokee 20.2 23.6 28.5 Clay 7.2 9.0 11.8 Graham 7.2 7.6 7.7 Haywood 47.0 52.5 58.2 Henderson 69.7 83.5 98.1 Jackson 26.9 30.5 33.7 Macon 23.6 29.5 36.8 Madison 17.0 19.1 21.1 McDowell 35.7 41.2 48.2 Mitchell 14.4 14.8 14.8 Polk 14.5 17.1 19.0 Rutherford 57.1 62.0 67.9 Swain 11.3 12.4 13.5 Transylvania 25.5 29.2 33.5 Watauga 37.0 41.7 45.5 Wilkes 59.4 64.2 70.4 Yancey 15.4 17.0 19.1 REGION 857.3 963.8 1,075.1 NORTH CAROLINA 6,644.9 7,763.6 9,119.0 PER-CAPITAL INCOME (in 000s) COUNTY 1990 2000 [*]...