Playing a bigger role by ignoring its lines.

• Position: Carolinas Partnership: a North Carolina regional partnership

Charlotte is home to pioneers in interstate banking, so it's fitting that the regional partnership based there ignores the border to its south. The Carolinas Partnership, one of the state's first, is the only one to extend its influence across state lines. Three South Carolina counties are among its 15. In fact, 1997 board chairman is Bayles Mack, a lawyer who lives and works in Fort Mill, S.C.

It is a testament to the strength of the business climate in Charlotte that all 15 counties have agreed to market themselves as the "Charlotte region." The fringe counties might not like paying homage to the Queen City, but they have come to recognize that they can benefit by hitching themselves to its roaring economic engine.

Much of the initial resentment seems to have dissipated. "We have gotten past a lot of that," Mack says. "The reason is because economically it is better for us to join together. Charlotte is the drawing card. We have had a lot of businesses that wanted to be near Charlotte rather than in Charlotte, so therefore the surrounding counties have been the beneficiaries."

The partnership's work across the state line is a touchy issue in Raleigh, where bureaucrats worry about tax money flowing to an organization that could benefit another state. "In theory, you could be spending money in South Carolina that is generated in North Carolina," Mack concedes.

But it's tough to argue with success, and the Carolinas Partnership region is among the strongest for economic development. According to a 1996 N.C. Department of Commerce report, it does better than the state average in terms of income and employment levels and other measures of business performance and has the lowest poverty rate in the state.

Exactly how much credit goes to the partnership itself is hard to say. "We don't look at the partnership as generating an overwhelming number of leads for us," says Jeff McKay, director of economic development for Greater Statesville Development Corp. Most of his leads still come from the state Department of Commerce. "But we've been able to do some things from a marketing standpoint through regionalism that the individual communities would never be able to do on their own." He has leaned on the partnership, for example, to help pay for trips to visit prospects and for trade-show exhibiting.

POPULATION (in 000s) COUNTY 1986 1996(*) 2006(*) Alexander 26.5 30.4 36.4 Anson 24.5 24.4 27.0 Cabarrus 93.3 111.9 134.9 Catawba 113.0 127.9 145.6...