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Charlotte's moment: Chip Jones discovers how a city's leaders turned an old textile town into a major economic power. As the dust settles on Wall Street, this Tar Heel city may emerge stronger than ever.

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The plaza of Bank of America in Charlotte was pulsing with music one unseasonably cool day in mid-August. A line of curly-haired schoolgirls danced as part of an Asian-American appreciation day that promoted a new park named for Mahatma Gandhi.

Gandhi in the Carolinas? The homage to the Indian martyr brought a smile to the sun-baked face of a wiry retiree wearing a Carolina Panthers cap, a black sports shirt, and matching slacks. Hugh L. McColl Jr., a legendary banker, reveled in how times had changed in the old textile city whose downtown used to roll up at night while favorite son Billy Graham read his Bible.

Scanning the festival, the former chairman and CEO of Bank of America declared, "It's a sign of the times. If you came here 20 years ago, there wouldn't have been any Indians." McColl is part of a cadre of business and civic leaders who helped transform Charlotte into one of the nation's largest banking centers. Among the nation's banking hubs, only New York City is bigger.

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In addition, McColl and others helped broaden and diversify the Charlotte economy over the years to include entertainment, services, healthcare, and technology. These efforts may help ensure Charlotte's continued prominence, because the financial and banking turmoil that has transformed Wall Street has walloped Charlotte, too, particularly its home-grown Wachovia bank. Jeff Michael, director of the University of North Carolina-Charlotte's Urban Institute, says that "we may be getting ready to see just how resilient this city really is."

On the upside, the city's other banking powerhouse, Bank of America, is purchasing Merrill Lynch & Co., making it the nation's biggest bank by assets. It is likely to emerge from the tumult as one of the most important financial firms in the world.

The 60-floor Bank of America building is known as the "Taj McColl," and on that August day, the retired executive--who still runs a private equity firm from the glass tower above--was spotted by event organizers, who asked him to sponsor the Gandhi statue dedication. McColl politely begged off, and instead got them to chat up a visitor about the new Charlotte, and how it has become an increasingly diverse, affordable, and sophisticated international city in the Carolina Piedmont.

In two decades the foreign-born population in Charlotte has exploded, with over 10,000 people from the Indian subcontinent alone living in the Charlotte area, says John C. Chen, vice chairman of the Carolinas Asian-American Chamber of Commerce. "We're working very hard to get investment from China," Chen adds. Charlotte boasts...