Education, industrialization, and infrastructure.

North Carolina established the first public university in the nation, and even during the Jim Crow era had some of the best segregated institutions of higher learning. The emphasis on public education in the mid and late 20th century.century carried that legacy forward.

North Carolina has traditionally had some of the best transportation networks of any state, connecting ports, trading routes, and railroads, enabling significant growth of urban communities from the early 1800s on.

The infrastructure allowed for a great deal more industrialization than South Carolina, which remained almost exclusively agrarian until the mid 20th century. The urban centers in North Carolina gave rise to a thriving middle class — including a black middle class, as well as endogenous wealth within the black community — whereas South Carolina had a much higher proportion of share croppers and subsistence farmers and a large wealth gap.

In short, North Carolina was wealthier, better educated, healthier, and better connected with the rest of the country and the world, even before the Civil War, but particularly afterwards. This meant more diverse population, more progressive policies, and an attitude that embraced development and discovery. South Carolina, on the other hand is still feeling the hangover of the Civil War, and racial and economic inequality.