Triad's future hinges on cooperation, official says: Boundaries are hindering growth, he says.

Byline: Richard Craver

Jan. 9--The president of the Piedmont Triad Partnership issued a new year's warning to the region's civic and business leaders: Collaborate or continue to shrink in competitiveness. "The Piedmont Triad needs a bold, new comprehensive strategy to better leverage the collective assets of the entire 12-county region," Don Kirkman said in the partnership's regular news-letter to supporters. "And it needs it now." Kirkman has preached for years -- with mixed results -- about the need for the 12-county region, in particular its three major cities of Greensboro, Winston-Salem and High Point, to remove boundaries that have thwarted economic cooperation and create a tax mechanism for economic projects.

So have numerous studies, of which two are still under way -- …