夏洛特：劫后余生的美国金融中心

    夏洛特是个商业城市。算上郊区的话，这里总共坐落着八家财富500强企业，真是令人感激不尽。这座城市依然堪称美国的另一个金融中心。但要想弄清楚过去四年来这里所发生的事情，也就是破产、陷入低谷以及它的未来，开始的最佳去处不是市中心Trade街和Tryon街（相当于是这座城市的底格里斯河和幼发拉底河）的交汇处，也不是离南卡罗来纳州际公路一步之遥的光鲜办公区。

    相反，我们得沿着杂乱无章、异常喧闹的威尔金森大道（Wilkinson Boulevard）来到了海厄特枪店（Hyatt Gun Shop）。该店自称是美国最大的独立枪械专卖店。店主拉里•海厄特为人友善、富有洞察力，总是随身携带着手机和没有击锤的史密斯•维森（Smith & Wesson）手枪。在经济衰退之前的繁荣日子里，海厄特生意兴隆，把大量的高端猎枪卖给了银行家们。那时，这些银行家把夏洛特称为家乡，现在依然如此。2007年，生意越来越差，他说这便是早期预警信号。

    但这家枪店已经兴盛了53年，具有很强的适应力。海厄特很快发现，枪箱是笔大生意。它们不只是用来存放步枪的。这次是用来放钱。他说：“人们想要在银行之外找个更加安全的地方。”

    银行之外。这在夏洛特曾经是个难以想象的概念。就像是汽车之外的底特律，或者赌博之外的拉斯维加斯。两家大银行，也就是美国银行（Bank of America，在财富美国500强排行榜上排在第13位）和美联银行（Wachovia）使夏洛特这个既没有港口、河流，也没有顶级研究型大学的地方声名鹊起，变成了第一流乃至世界级的城市。但后来，这两家银行步履踉跄，因为经济衰退和风险过于集中而遭受重创。美联银行被卖给了富国银行（Wells Fargo，在财富美国500强排行榜上排在第26位）。美国银行或许大到不能倒，但这家金融机构仍然面临着投资者和监管机构的严密监督。

    从这座城市的金融核心地带开始，痛苦和不确定性如同污渍一般蔓延到了整个地区，从柴纳格罗夫的工人阶级小镇一直到诺曼湖边的豪宅。失业率飙升，取消抵押品赎回权的情况大幅增加，仿佛从混凝土到钢筋、从红土到一望无垠的砖块，整个大地都屏住了呼吸，提心吊胆地等待新一轮的打击。

    但事实并非如此。夏洛特虽然尚未完全恢复，但推土机和起重机已经回来了。曾经帮助这座城市实现发展的铁锈地带大迁徙又重新开始了。甚至连高档连锁食品杂货店Dean & Deluca也在扩张。或许，就连迈克尔•乔丹那支时运不济的山猫队明年也有机会赢得总冠军。

    趾高气昂的夏洛特曾经相信，坐落在这座城市的大公司绝对正确，因而过于唯这些大公司的马首是瞻。但这次起死回生为这座城市注入了一些谦逊和新的思考。对于政府在重建经济中的适当角色，美国进行了全国性的讨论，而夏洛特的复苏成为了讨论的一部分。

    Charlotte is a corporate town. Counting its suburbs, it's still home to eight Fortune 500 companies, thank you very much. It's still very much the country's other banking center. But to make sense of what's happened here in the past four years -- the bust, the bottom, and what comes next -- the best place to begin isn't at the junction of Trade and Tryon streets downtown (the city's Tigris and Euphrates) or even in the gleaming office parks a stone's throw from the South Carolina state line.

    Instead, let's head down the scrappy jangle of Wilkinson Boulevard to the Hyatt Gun Shop, which calls itself the nation's largest independent gun store. Larry Hyatt, the owner, is a friendly and perceptive man who is never without his cellphone or hammerless Smith & Wesson. In the go-go days before the economy went south, Hyatt had a booming trade selling high-end shotguns to the bankers who called, and still call, Charlotte home. When that business tailed off in 2007, he said it was the canary in the coal mine.

    But a gun store that has thrived for 53 years is an adaptable business, and Hyatt soon found a big seller in gun safes. They weren't just for storing rifles. This time they were for holding money. "People wanted something safer outside of the banks," he says.

    Outside of the banks. It's a concept that was once unimaginable here. Like Detroit outside of cars. Or Vegas outside of gambling. Two big banks -- Bank of America (No. 13) and Wachovia -- put Charlotte on the map, creating a first-class, if not world-class, city out of a place without a harbor, a river, or a major research university. Then they stumbled, each dragged down by the recession and one deal too many. Wachovia was sold to Wells Fargo (No. 26). Bank of America may be too big to fail, but it's an institution still under intense scrutiny from investors and regulators.

    From the city's financial heart, the pain and uncertainty spread like a stain across the region, from the working-class towns of China Grove and Gastonia to the McMansions that line Lake Norman. Unemployment soared. So did foreclosures. It was as if the whole land -- the concrete and steel, the red dirt and the endless brick -- was holding its breath, just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

    And then it didn't. Charlotte isn't fully recovered yet, but the bulldozers and cranes have returned. The great migration from the Rustbelt that helped fuel its growth has resumed. Even the Dean & Deluca is expanding. Maybe next year even Michael Jordan's hapless Bobcats will win.

    The gyrations have brought a dose of humility and new thinking to a swaggering region that had come to believe in the infallibility of its largest corporate citizens and perhaps relied too heavily on them for direction. Charlotte's rebound is also part of the larger national debate taking place about the proper role of government in rebuilding the economy.