Does Jealousy Really Exist in the Triad?

[JerseyBoy]

It has been documented well on this board that there is a certain sense of negativity here in the Triad between all cities in the region. Whenever a new company decides on relocating or opening up a new office, there is an all-out incentive war between two or more cities. As we all know, a perfect example of this was Dell. A site was selected near PTI by Guilford County while Forsyth chose a rural area off of 311/74. This battle went on for months until there was a winner chosen by Dell in November of 2004. Some may say that this one project really split the area apart and caused a lot of hard feelings that still exist to this day.

The Heart of the Triad was supposed to be a collaborative effort between all city/county governments (whose land is apart of the project) in the region to set up a master plan for the future of the land in the center of the Triad. New reorganizing has lead to the committee being made up of mostly Guilford County officials. While a majority of the land being evaluated is in Guilford, this was intended to be a joint partnership between all the main cities in the Triad.

Winston decided in the '90's to redevelop an old district of tobacco warehouses in eastern downtown into a new biotech research park that would create 10,000 new jobs by 2020. Greensboro came out in the early '00's with their answer to PTRP, Gateway Research Park. The two are now competing against each other for companies that every other revitalizing city in the nation wants to attract as well.

Part of what made RTP so successful was that it was a plan made by the top 3 universities in the Triangle and all city/county governments. All of them stuck to this plan and what you have now is the end result.

I see some make comments on here like "Winston is jealous of Greensboro" and "Greensboro doesn't have anything on Winston." This used to ammuse me to no end that some would make idiotic comments like that, until I started looking at the whole picture. I feel that there is a sense of jealousy between the cities in the Triad. Instead of working together, we have developed an 'all for me' attitude in everyone of our towns.

My question to you is: Do you think that jealousy really exists between cities in the Triad, and if so, why?

The only way we will ever prosper as a region is if we act as teamplayers and work together.

NOTE: Please do not turn this into a bash fest that only results in immature arguing about whose town is better. This discussion is intended to look at the inner ego problems that exist in the Triad and what it will take to get rid of them and start working together.

[suburban george3]

My question to you is: Do you think that jealousy really exists between cities in the Triad, and if so, why?

[cityboi]

There is and not just jealously among people on the forums but in the governments....thats why there seems to be alot of mistrust between the cities. We usually think of Greensboro vs Winston-Salem but in many cases its Greensboro vs High Point as well. These attitudes have stunted growth in the Triad. The cities are begining to work together now but there still seems to be a timidness about doing so.

[Creasy336]

Atleast Greensboro, Winston-Salem, and High Point get recognized in the Triad. I usually see stories about Lexington, or Thomasville before I see a story about the Burlington Alamance area. I would like to see Winston-Salem and Greensboro work together more often as a team. I wouldn't mind see the transit systems unified creating a regional brand that would be recognized and used more often within the cities locally and regionally between cities. I believe greater cooperation between both cities has to start with the goverment. Some sort of rail link to Winston-Salem would help a great deal also. I don't care if the train is merely a shuttle to connect with Amtrak in Greensboro just to get something going.

[coastalmindset]

I agree with most of what has been said so far but I think most of this "jealousy" is spurred on by our local governments. The people we continue to elect to important local government offices don't know how to work together. I look in Greensboro/Guilford at both city and county levels and they can't even work with each other how could they possibly work with other city governments on anything productive. In High Point they have a city council that doesn't want their city to grow. They have done nothing productive to help the decaying downtown area and all the growth is heading toward the airport and Greensboro. They can't even support their own local mall.

It's tough when 3 cities are all going after the same companies trying to attract the same jobs. I think each city must either finds it's primary focus (i.e. manufacturing, finance, medical, education) or we must look at more central projects that are neutral in terms of land and bragging rights. I don't care what city you live in you always want your city to be the best but when it starts bringing down the region there needs to be a centralization of the growth.

[twincity]

I think the Triad is case of two captains trying to steer the ship, which leads to jealousy and competition. I think its pretty common when two larger cities are in the same metro. look at Minneapolis and St. Paul. Ive heard that its so bad up there, that even the residents bicker.

also, each city lacks what the other one has and until one or the other gains what it lacks, there will always be jealousy/competition.

just for the record, the latest scenario:

2 months ago, Winston announces a bid for the MEAC tournament which is looking for a new home for the next 2-4 years. at that time the only competing NC city was Fayetteville.

a few days ago, Greensboro announces that they are now bidding for the tournament and it wants to be known as a true "Tournament Town". not saying this is a bad thing, but just more evidence of how competitve our cities are.

[davidals]

Atleast Greensboro, Winston-Salem, and High Point get recognized in the Triad. I usually see stories about Lexington, or Thomasville before I see a story about the Burlington Alamance area. I would like to see Winston-Salem and Greensboro work together more often as a team. I wouldn't mind see the transit systems unified creating a regional brand that would be recognized and used more often within the cities locally and regionally between cities. I believe greater cooperation between both cities has to start with the goverment. Some sort of rail link to Winston-Salem would help a great deal also. I don't care if the train is merely a shuttle to connect with Amtrak in Greensboro just to get something going.

[cityboi]

I think the Triad is case of two captains trying to steer the ship, which leads to jealousy and competition. I think its pretty common when two larger cities are in the same metro. look at Minneapolis and St. Paul. Ive heard that its so bad up there, that even the residents bicker.

also, each city lacks what the other on the has and until one or the other gains what it lacks, there will always be jealousy/competition.

just for the record, the latest scenario:

2 months ago, Winston announces a bid for the MEAC tournament which is looking for a new home for the next 2-4 years. at that time the only competing NC city was Fayetteville.

a few days ago, Greensboro announces that they are now bidding for the tournament and it wants to be known as a true "Tournament Town". not saying this is a bad thing, but just more evidence of how competitve our cities are.

[triadguy37]

I think time time is now to start planning or brainstorming around rail transit options - what will be needed in the future, and that is something that will demand regionalism. I don't know if Charlotte (in planning and implementation) would be an example to draw cues from, but the failure to get if off the ground in The Triangle (which - it has been speculated - may be a by-product of lingering city-vs-city provincialism in The Triangle) would probably be a good example of what to avoid.

Is there any city-to-city bus service in the Triad?

[JerseyBoy]

I agree with most of what has been said so far but I think most of this "jealousy" is spurred on by our local governments. The people we continue to elect to important local government offices don't know how to work together. I look in Greensboro/Guilford at both city and county levels and they can't even work with each other how could they possibly work with other city governments on anything productive. In High Point they have a city council that doesn't want their city to grow. They have done nothing productive to help the decaying downtown area and all the growth is heading toward the airport and Greensboro. They can't even support their own local mall.

It's tough when 3 cities are all going after the same companies trying to attract the same jobs. I think each city must either finds it's primary focus (i.e. manufacturing, finance, medical, education) or we must look at more central projects that are neutral in terms of land and bragging rights. I don't care what city you live in you always want your city to be the best but when it starts bringing down the region there needs to be a centralization of the growth.

[yadkinv]

How is it possible to cooperate on something like Dell, for example? It has to be in one or the other, and that one benefits. The jealousy factor seems unsolvable because of several problems. Unlike Minneapolis and Saint Paul (Minneapolis is much larger even though Saint Paul is the capital), which are adjacent to one another (as is the case in many such situations) Winston-Salem's and Greensboro's downtowns are 25 miles apart (never mind that the city limits are only about seven miles apart).

It is very important in such metro areas for cities to be larger, even if by one person, because that puts their name first in the Bureau of the Census reference and more national recognition. Note that national chains, especially highend ones, open in Greensboro first although not always because Winston-Salem is almost the same population. Also, note the extreme competition in annexation. When Winston-Salem annexed last year, the original annexation would have made it larger, but officials cut it back and the difference in population is negligble right now (Greensboro still ahead), but Greensboro quickly moved to announce its own annexation to restore a comfortable margin.

Then there's the airport, which Greensboro refused to move to a halfway position, and which assures that Winston-Salem will never achieve the recognition nationally that Greensboro enjoys.

The unfortunate thing for boith cities is that they are too far apart and too small (presently) to make regionalism work, but they are too close together and too large not to b e considered together. I admit bias toward W-S, but the big things, the airport and the vote on major league baseball were defeated by Greensboro (I know W-S and Forsyth deafeated it as well, but by a much slimmer margin than Greensboro and Guilford). It seems apparent that Greensboro wants to emerge as truly dominant with everything there, and maybe it will, but cooperation seems useless because W-S has already lost, and whatever cooperation there is, will benefit Greensboro more, and Heart of the Triad is an example. Also, take the Dell plant as an example. Yes, W-S won it, but that was totally because of frienships, they can say what they will, but look where it is located, southeatern Forsyth and W-S, which benefits Greensboro and Guilford as well, and it's there because of the airport location. If it were in southwestern Guilford, it would benefit W-S only very marginally.

[cityboi]

yadkinv.....I do agree with you on one thing. I do believe A motive for Greensboro's mass annexation was to restore a comfortable margin after the big annexation in Winston-Salem. It wasnt the only motive but Ive heard a Greensboro city-council member on TV during the city council meeting say that Greensboro needed to move forward with the annexation in time for the 2010 census. Some of the areas thats being annexed could have been added to the city a long time ago like the Cardinal neighborhood near the airport. It seems to be a pattern in Greensboro to annex large chunks of land near the end of each decade. It happen before 2000.

Here are the city boundaries in 2008 (BTW im currently updating the Guilford County map on my job and Kernersville has annexed across the Guilford County line and now touches Greensboro city limits)

As for the airport thats done in over with. PTI as been in that location for decades. But The cities have got beyond that and Winston-Salem has accepted the fact that PTI is in Greensboro. I think as we look forward to the future, the cities need to work together in a way that one city doesnt benefit too much over the other. Otherwise we'll see the cities doing their own thing like with the research parks. Instead of building PTRP on the Guilford/Forysth County line it was built in downtown Winston-Salem. Now from an urban point of view its a great project for the Twin City. I think its the only urban research park in the United States. Certainly its a boon for downtown Winston-Salem and is a better example of smart development. However Greensboro leaders dont see how a research park in Winston-Salem is going to benefit Greensboro. So Greensboro is building Gateway University Research Park which will incude a nanotech college. The two cities will continue to do their own thing as long as certain projects and policies benefit one city over another. Thats just how the leaders in both cities think.

[sean]

Jealousy is unproductive. These two separate research parks are a creatures of niche markets. PTRP's success in downtown Winston-Salem is because that is a crossroads for the pillars of medicine, research, and capital (Baptist Hospital, WFU, and the banks). I don't think it would make sense for that particular niche research park to be out in the hinterland of the county line.

Both GURP's campus location and PTRP's location seem to be a result of the availability of large tracts of undeveloped or re-developable land.

One small but constructive criticism with Greensboro: Its the water stupid!

With the engineering and architecture know-how at NC A&T and the UNCG's Geography dept.'s expertise in land use study, GIS and Geology; it begs to be asked why isn't there any mention of some synergy in water conservation technology, or an effort to create a School of Water Conservation.

[cityboi]

Jealousy is unproductive. These two separate research parks are a creatures of niche markets. PTRP's success in downtown Winston-Salem is because that is a crossroads for the pillars of medicine, research, and capital (Baptist Hospital, WFU, and the banks). I don't think it would make sense for that particular niche research park to be out in the hinterland of the county line.

Both GURP's campus location and PTRP's location seem to be a result of the availability of large tracts of undeveloped or re-developable land.

One small but constructive criticism with Greensboro: Its the water stupid!

With the engineering and architecture know-how at NC A&T and the UNCG's Geography dept.'s expertise in land use study, GIS and Geology; it begs to be asked why isn't there any mention of some synergy in water conservation technology, or an effort to create a School of Water Conservation.

[krazeeboi]

I've heard Greenville and Spartanburg are just as bad. I think they had to put Greenville and Spartanburg in seperate sections on this forum.

[cityboi]

They were put in separate sections because there are enough forumers from each city to justify that. You can't take what happens on an urban geek site and translate that into real life. And I would disagree that the situation in the Upstate is as bad, because there are three primary cities of differing size, and each knows its role. The issue in the Triad is that you have two similarly-sized cities battling for prominence. That's usually not the case in most large multi-nodal metro areas in the U.S. (Twin Cities, DFW, Upstate, Tampa Bay, etc.). The notable exceptions would be the Bay Area and Hampton Roads, but even then, you have one city which is clearly the urban center of the metro area (San Francisco, Norfolk) and historically has always been, and the other is the result of sprawling growth (San Jose) or massive annexation (VA Beach--technically it was a city/county consolidation type deal, which is essentially the same thing).

[Piedmont Airlines]

The cities are jealous of each other because one city has what the other doesn

[yadkinv]

Thank you for that comment because sad as it is, it seems to be inevitable, that is, something in one benefits that one the most with only peripheral and lesser benefits in the other such as FEDEX in Greensboro, oops PTI, which belongs to the Triad.

No it doesn't, the airport is in Greensboro (although they agreed never to annex it, but whats that thing encircling the airport grounds?) as is announced on all airport boards nationwide (remember it's Raleigh/Durham on those Boards). This is one thing I meant when stating that Greensboro has already won; W-S can never, never overcome the airport thing that Greensboro refused (a good business decision) in a non-cooperative move to yield on, so W-S has no choice, but to capitulate except in some distant future when both are large enough for a major airport each. I still say that Smith-Reynolds should be abandoned and another built around the junction of the Forsyth, Surry, and Stokes boundaries, but that's another story.

And, please say how Honda Jet helps W-S, and why W-S should have helped with incentives. Dell's location helps Greensboro way yonder more, but did Greensboro provide any incentives, hmmm, no they didn't.

[Piedmont Airlines]

No it doesn't, the airport is in Greensboro (although they agreed never to annex it, but whats that thing encircling the airport grounds?) as is announced on all airport boards nationwide (remember it's Raleigh/Durham on those Boards). This is one thing I meant when stating that Greensboro has already won; W-S can never, never overcome the airport thing that Greensboro refused (a good business decision) in a non-cooperative move to yield on, so W-S has no choice, but to capitulate except in some distant future when both are large enough for a major airport each. I still say that Smith-Reynolds should be abandoned and another built around the junction of the Forsyth, Surry, and Stokes boundaries, but that's another story.

[Creasy336]

I don't think two Triad commercial airports are a good idea. Lets focus on making the airport the Triad shares better. So what PTI is surrounded by Greensboro. If Greensboro hadn't annexed the airport by now it'd be a part of High Point. Would people advocating a new airport in forsyth county be mad with High Point then? This whole arguement goes back the whole airport code topic we had awhile back. Don't build another airport because monitors around the nation say "Greensboro" that doesn't make sense.

RDU is surrounded by Raleigh for the most part I don't see residents of Durham and Chapel Hill advocating an airport somewhere near Hillsborough. Winston-Salem's growth patterns are the main reason the airport isn't closer to PTI than it is. Most of Winston-Salem's development is north and west at the moment thats just how the city grew. Raleigh and Durham happened to grow together making Durham border RDU and Raleigh.

Greensboro should stop focusing so much on what Winston-Salem has and how to "out do it" and vice-versa. Each city should consider what the other city has as an asset to itself. Right now we need to focus on how to get mass transit in a region that has 2 I-40s, 2 I-85s, and countless other freeways. Traffic isn't really an issue here anymore. SO how do you convince the feds to help fund our transit? If they won't fund a mass transit system, how do we (the Triad) fund one ourselves?

[Piedmont Airlines]

I don't think two Triad commercial airports are a good idea. Lets focus on making the airport the Triad shares better. So what PTI is surrounded by Greensboro. If Greensboro hadn't annexed the airport by now it'd be a part of High Point. Would people advocating a new airport in forsyth county be mad with High Point then? This whole arguement goes back the whole airport code topic we had awhile back. Don't build another airport because monitors around the nation say "Greensboro" that doesn't make sense.

[JerseyBoy]

Please remember that this topic is not about PTI and blaming other cities for things that have happened in the past. If you want to, feel free to create your own topic and discuss it there.

I agree with Creasy that the airport is going to have to be something the Triad has to share. Winston will never grow to a size that warrants two airports. No matter how we look at it, everyone of our cities benefits from the companies that have recently set up shop around PTI. So what if HondaJet is located in the city of Greensboro? Do you see Chapel Hill throwing a hissy-fit because businesses are expanding in RTP in Durham County?

I tend to think Greensboro isn't looking to 'battle' with Winston anymore. They are starting to move on and replicate failed ideas of planning from other towns in the outer edges of the city. You can thank the excessive amount of highways in the area as well as city-planners for approving every cheap piece of suburban crap that comes across their desk for that. This 'growing by all means' policy that Greensboro leaders have seemed to adopt is going to have to stop before it ruins our quality of life.

Winston's mentality is to play catch-up with Greensboro by annexing every last piece of land they can. This is also a terrible way to remain competitive.

If they won't fund a mass transit system, how do we (the Triad) fund one ourselves?

[Piedmont Airlines]

Do you see Chapel Hill throwing a hissy-fit because businesses are expanding in RTP in Durham County?

[JerseyBoy]

Chapel Hill is the High Point of the Triangle. Compare apples to apples not apples to oranges. In the Triangle Raleigh is the chief and Durham and Chapel Hill are the indians. In the triad though Winston Salem and Greensboro are fighting for the role of chief and High Point is the lone indian. In order for things to run smoothly you need more indians than chiefs.

[yadkinv]

How can Winston-Salem and Chapel Hill possibly be compared to one another in any way?

Durham is much smaller than Raleigh, and it doesn't complain about the airport situation because in The Triangle, it is truly cooperative, that is, it's Raleigh/Durham on all of the airport boards nationwide. In The Triad, Winston-Salem and Greensboro's difference in size is negligible, and as indicated, it's very emabarrassing (there's no other word for it) that Winston-Salem, a city of over a quarter of a million, is perceived nationally as having no airport. This is absolutely true from travel agents to the general public, and there's no denying it. It is truly a logical rediculous state of being. Who cares if the airport is in Greensboro (which it is not and can never be), but Winston-Salem's name must be associated nationally or there is no cooperation as there is in Raleigh/Durham.

Greensboro's inflexibility and lack of coopertaion in putting the airport in a more central location when the new one was built has backfired and deteriorated the cooperation factor.

I'd still like to know how Honda Jet benefits Winston-Salem. It's not Honda Jet at Piedmont Triad International in Greensboro/Winston-Salem, but only Greensboro, and it's just not a big enough deal to benefit anyone very much.