Little by little: rural areas produced many of the visionaries who built North Carolina. Now small towns and cities struggle to stay relevant.

• Author: Mildenberg, David
• Position: Up Front

I grew up in a burg of about 13,000 people, so I'm biased. But I learned long ago that small towns and rural areas produce important things. Charlotte wouldn't be what it is today without Hugh McColl Jr., from Bennettsville, S.C., or Bruton Smith, from Oakboro. Roger Soles, Greensboro's most prominent business leader during the late 20th century, grew up on a Columbus County farm. BB&T Corp. CEO Kelly King was a Zebulon country boy before entering East Carolina University. It's also an increasingly old-fashioned view--as quaint as Andy Griffith's chummy Mayberry, which formed many Americans' impression of North Carolina.

The odds are stacked against small-town America, as Ed Martin's cover story on Robeson County (page 50) demonstrates. Not long ago, our state's poorest county was home to a $1 billion bank--in the mid-1980s, I visited Southern National Bank's Lumberton headquarters and heard executives Hector MacLean and Joe Sandlin talk smack about their big-city rivals. But the town lost its sugar daddy after Southern National's 1994 merger with Wilson-based BB&T, which moved the combined bank to Winston-Salem. Decades later, corporate America's migration to bigger cities is accelerating as more millennials opt for the baristas, ballparks and brewpubs such places offer.

It's not just rural areas suffering. Small cities, though substantial by North Carolina standards, are struggling to attract businesses and newcomers. In this issue, NCtrend examines the decline of Hickory's young-adult population and, in response, a $40 million bond issue for bike paths and other beautification efforts (page 12). Sounds pretty squishy for one of the state's Republican strongholds, but Mayor Rudy Wright says a tax hike is needed to lure and retain...