Queen city is a team player.

• Position: Charlotte, North Carolina - Special Advertising Section

The six-year courtship of the Carolina Panthers football franchise exemplifies the kinship between the city of Charlotte and the rest of North Carolina. Landing the $150 million team, the Queen City will make its debut in the National Football League. But like every other debutante who dons a white dress and elbow-length gloves, Charlotte couldn't have done it without her family.

Panthers management relied on the synergy between the markets along the Interstate 85 crescent -- Raleigh/Durham, Greensboro/Winston-Salem and Greenville/Spartanburg, S.C. -- to convince the NFL a Carolinas franchise was viable. Here's where the mutually dependent relationship between Charlotte and the rest of the state comes into focus. Without the support of these regional markets, Charlotte simply wasn't big enough to try out for the football team. But if North Carolina weren't home to a city the size of Charlotte, the Old North State would never play host to a professional game.

"I talked very little about Charlotte when we sold the NFL on the idea," says Max Muhleman, the marketing mastermind behind the Panthers organization. "That's the perfect expression of what Charlotte really is. It's simply the hub of a big wheel."

In the end -- as the Panthers have demonstrated -- the fates of North Carolina and Charlotte are tied. Mark Heath, president of the Carolinas Partnership, a 15-county, Charlotte-based regional economic-development consortium, sums it up this way: "We have a philosophy that a rising tide raises all ships. We're trying to raise the collective tide of this region by forging relationships across county and state lines."

N.C. Commerce Secretary Dave Phillips, a High Point native, doesn't let geographic boundaries quell his enthusiasm for the Queen City. "We talk about Charlotte everywhere we go, all over the world. They're a terrific asset to the state."

Phillips isn't the only one growing hoarse talking about Charlotte. In 1991, The New York Times said: "From its glistening skyline and button-down corporate culture to its blend of big-time religion and civic boosterism, Charlotte's rise is very much the story of the rebirth of the South." Barron's, a weekly business tabloid published by Dow Jones Inc., noted: "With its pro-business attitude, low manufacturing wages and growing reputation as a financial center, Charlotte has become an engine for economic growth."

"The NFL's endorsement of our city has given us more credibility as a convention destination," says Jeanne Swenson, director of marketing and communications for the new Charlotte Convention Center. "It puts us head and shoulders above our competition -- other second-tier cities across the country."

Since October, when Richardson Sports won the Panthers franchise, the Charlotte Convention Center has been able to close sales on several convention bookings. That's important, as the city's new $141 million convention center, which at 850,000 square feet is big enough to fit 430 average-size houses inside it, will open for business this Christmas.

Just down the street is a gleaming monument to the city's financial strength -- NationsBank's $300 million, 60-story Corporate Center complex. History provides the answer to how the state and its banking laws helped create a climate in which NationsBank and competitor First Union flourished. North Carolina was the last of the 13 original states in which a bank was established. Soon after, in 1804, the General Assembly declared all banks should be free to establish branches anywhere. In doing so, North Carolina became one of the...