Gradually, it seemed, prosperity was taking hold.

The emcee at the ceremony in Indianapolis suggested that the Alliance of Area Business Publications open a hall of fame so it could put Ed Martin in it.

For a decade, western North Carolina has tried to brand itself as a magnet for creative, digital-age businesses.

Even in good times, downtown theaters and sports arenas can run in the red their first few years, and the Durham Performing Arts Center had no warm economic wind at its back.

They’ve competed for jobs, attention and even baseball stadiums. But especially for jobs.

Supporters have called the proposed North Carolina International Terminal “America’s Next Great Port.”

Sickly banks are often killed — “failed” is the polite term — and sold quickly to healthy ones, so as not to spook customers.

We think of the past as a simpler time, and indeed it was — specifically 2008, when private companies offered cable service and Internet access, cities contented themselves with matters like zoning issues and sign ordinances, and never did those twains meet.

Not long ago, a crowd in the hundreds — large by the standards of your usual Raleigh political protest — showed up at the Legislative Building.

Dad was the original bean counter,” says Jon Burns, president of Riverview Inn, a Charlotte restaurant that last year sold about a million dollars worth of seafood, fried in some 10 tons of oil.