Fast-growing North Carolina Faces an Identity Crisis

Affluent urban and suburban neighborhoods while poor rural areas seethe?

North Carolina in the 2020s is at a crossroads. No longer Andy Griffith’s “Mayberry,” no longer dominated by natives from small towns with an agricultural heritage, it must decide what it now is and what it wants to be. It now competes with northern industrial states to be among the most populous in the nation.

Is bigger better? In becoming one of Ameri…