North Carolina’s mix of legacy and cutting-edge industries, along with its excellent universities and community colleges, makes it a model of economic dynamism. With 11 million residents, it is the ninth largest and fifth-fastest-growing state.² The blend of high-skilled people working productive jobs for growing businesses translates to a powerful economic engine. North Carolina’s GDP grew by 3.8% from Q3 2023 to Q3 2024, which ranks it eighth in this metric, and the state’s economy is now the 11th largest in the US.³

It wasn’t always this way. North Carolina has evolved from an economy based on tobacco, textiles and furniture to one that includes biotech manufacturing, a robust financial sector and a growing aerospace industry. The state’s diverse, decentralized economy includes many distinct regional economies, which we created Extended Metropolitan Areas (EMAs) to encompass as part of our American Growth Project. From Asheville in the western mountains to Wilmington on the Atlantic coast, we track and analyze eight EMAs in North Carolina. 

Two of these areas epitomize the state’s economic evolution: the Piedmont Triad and the Research Triangle. These adjacent EMAs are in central North Carolina, and between them they include 19 of the state’s 100 counties and 36% of its residents and account for 40% of the state’s GDP. As is the case with North Carolina’s economic history, manufacturing has played a major role in the development of these two microeconomies. Yet despite their similar characteristics and geographic closeness, the Triad and the Triangle have had divergent economic fortunes this century. Over the past several decades, the Triangle has catapulted itself to among the national leaders in economic expansion and population growth while the Triad’s economy has largely stagnated. Let’s dig into the data to find out why.

The Research Triangle

Centered on Wake and Durham counties, the Research Triangle encompasses three of North Carolina’s seven largest cities: Raleigh (the state capital), Durham and Cary. The Triangle’s three corners are the area’s three major research universities: the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the town of Chapel Hill, North Carolina State University in Raleigh, and Duke University in Durham. These educational powerhouses along with the area’s other institutions of higher education form a network of worker training and research, building human and intellectual capital that fuel the region’s and the state’s strong economic development.

Home to more than 2.2 million people – about 20% of the state’s population – the Triangle is the second-most-populated EMA in North Carolina, behind only Charlotte, and it is growing steadily. Our 2024 GDP estimates show that the Triangle’s economy grew 4.1% from its 2023 level. This expansion marks the fastest growth of any region in North Carolina and makes it the fourth-fastest-growing economy in 2024 among the 150 EMAs we track across the US. The Triangle’s annual economic output is estimated at $178 billion in 2024, accounting for 27% of North Carolina’s GDP and putting it second in the state behind Charlotte and 28^th in the country. 

Research Triangle Park, established in the 1950s, was conceived to leverage the area’s three major research universities to diversify North Carolina’s economy. RTP has grown into the country’s largest research park, now home to more than 375 companies and 60,000 employees.⁴

RTP’s firms include biotech firms like Pfizer, Biogen and Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies and computer technology giants Cisco Systems, Dell and IBM. Business services companies as well as research and logistics firms have joined them, creating a cross-industry corporate ecosystem and making the area an attractive landing spot for new plants. 

Johnson & Johnson, for instance, announced in October 2024 that it would invest over $2 billion in a biologics manufacturing facility in Wilson – not located in RTP but within the EMA – to manufacture medicines, a development that is expected to employ over 400 workers.⁵

The Triangle is the 14^th-most-productive EMA in the US, measured in output per worker, and it has the seventh-most-productive manufacturing sector. Only EMAs with large oil refining industries and San Francisco, with Silicon Valley, have more productive manufacturing sectors than the Triangle’s. A mere 5% of the area’s workforce is in manufacturing, yet the sector produces nearly 15% of the EMA’s GDP. By contrast, Charlotte, the state’s largest EMA by population and GDP, has almost 8% of its workforce in manufacturing producing just over 8% of the EMA’s GDP. The Triangle’s manufacturing productivity is more than twice that of Charlotte’s. 

The Piedmont Triad

Just west of the Research Triangle, the Piedmont Triad has a very different story to tell. While the Triangle experienced a boom in population, economic growth and productivity this century, the Triad has undergone stagnation, particularly since the global financial crisis of 2008-09. Anchored by Forsyth and Guilford counties, the EMA includes Greensboro, Winston-Salem and High Point, three of the state’s 10 largest cities. With just over 1.7 million people, or about 16% of the state’s population, the Triad is the third-largest region in the state, behind the Charlotte area and the Triangle. Our 2024 nowcast estimates that the Piedmont Triad’s economy grew by 1.7% from its 2023 level, which would make the Triad the sixth-fastest-growing economy in the state and 135th in the US. With a GDP of about $90 billion, the Triad’s economy in 2024 was just over half the size of the Triangle’s. 

A historic road and rail hub, the Piedmont Triad has the 20^th century infrastructure to dominate the state’s legacy industries. High Point, “the furniture capital of the world,” is the cradle of North Carolina’s furniture industry, taking advantage of the abundant hardwood resources found throughout the state. Triad cities, including Greensboro, Winston-Salem and Burlington, were textile industry centers with firms like Hanes Mills in Winston-Salem and Cone Mills in Greensboro. Tobacco once had a footprint in both the Research Triangle and remains a major industry in the Triad – R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, the largest tobacco company in the US, is headquartered in Winston-Salem.

These legacy industries are not as dominant in the region as they once were, yet manufacturing still accounts for a large share of the Triad’s economy. The Triad ranks 21^st out of 150 EMAs in the manufacturing sector’s share of its economic output, at nearly 20%. Meanwhile, 12.5% of the EMA’s jobs are in manufacturing, the sector’s third-highest employment share in the state and the 27th highest in the US. The Triad’s manufacturing productivity, however, is relatively modest – less than half as productive as the Triangle’s manufacturing sector – ranking it 58^th out of 150 EMAs and third in the state behind the Triangle and Fayetteville. 

The global financial crisis hit the US manufacturing sector especially hard as consumer spending plummeted, and the Piedmont Triad felt the brunt of the downturn’s negative effects. Since 2009, the region’s economy has stagnated, with total GDP growth of about 12%. The Triangle’s economy grew by more than 72% over the same period. We see a similar divergence in employment and productivity data. 

Yet not all the economic news for the Triad is negative. 

The Triad’s transition away from legacy manufacturing industries has been challenging, yet the region has begun building new advanced manufacturing plants. Honda Aircraft started manufacturing jet components in Greensboro in 2011 and jet engines in Burlington in 2015. Boom Supersonic completed its jet fabrication facility in Greensboro in 2024, planting the seeds of a burgeoning aerospace manufacturing hub. Thomas Built Buses, which has been in High Point since 1916, was joined by another automotive manufacturer at the beginning of 2025 when Toyota opened its EV battery plant in Liberty, NC. Taking advantage of the state’s supply of high-purity quartz, Qorvo Inc., a semiconductor manufacturer that supplies Apple, was established in 1991 in the Triad, then merged with an Oregon-based firm in 2015 and chose Greensboro as its headquarters. Meanwhile, Charlotte-based steel giant Nucor is set to open a new steel mill in the Triad in the first half of 2025. Home to its own diverse set of institutions of higher education – the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Wake Forest University and North Carolina A&T University – the Triad has a built-in workforce pipeline able to meet the labor demands of new industry developments. 

Looking at the Triad’s recent history and looking ahead, we find industry announcements and real investments, along with favorable conditions for further advanced manufacturing development, all pointing to a more productive manufacturing future. As the Research Triangle continues its blazing growth, the Piedmont Triad may be on the verge of joining its neighbor to the east. The Triad has the infrastructure, an educated workforce and the foundations of a modernized manufacturing sector, which will accrue agglomeration benefits as it becomes increasingly connected to the rest of the state, nation and globe. 

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