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Well, that was 2010, and most of the significant population growth between then and now has occurred in that 140 square miles. And just because it was undeveloped doesn’t mean it was farmland, some portion of that 140 square miles was and still is woods and fields.
I wasn't aware my poetic license had been revoked completely. Damn! Now I gotta stand in those long lines at the Rhetorical Vehicle Bureau.
The allure of Raleigh isn't that it's sexy or glitzy or trendy but that it gets nearly all of the basics right. Raleigh itself has low crime, good public schools, and competent local government. Then in the Triangle overall, you have an abundance of good jobs that pay well (RTP, the universities, state government, hospitals, etc.), a low cost of living, and warm/moderate weather. I can tell that by asking that question, you probably aren't raising school-age children--and neither am I, but I recognize that families drive a lot of domestic growth in our metros and the things that Raleigh gets right makes it very appealing for families. For me, as a Black professional, Raleigh/the Triangle also has a certain appeal with a sizable Black professional population and the fact that it hits that sweet spot of good jobs/good public schools/low cost of living means that it would be easier to build wealth there through home ownership and growing earning potential over time.
If Raleigh were a little closer to Charlotte, it would be the second city of the metro and not a suburb...basically what St. Paul is to Minneapolis.
And no, Charlotte isn't carrying all the weight on its side of this comparison at all. Education goes to Raleigh and going by the typical indicators used (e.g., crime, COL, schools, etc), so would qualify of life.
You may not get Raleigh and it might not be the place for you, but it doesn't get the accolades it does for nothing.
^omg, this.
The reality is that, if one really used objective data & analysis on these enumerated city vs. city comparisons (like this one) and included Raleigh, it would "win" a lot of these polls. It's why, out of the 4 cities being discussed here, Raleigh is the only HQ2 finalist. It's objectively a really good place for many, many reasons.
That said, it's not hard to understand why Raleigh receives so many negative and dismissive comments on the city vs city threads. Raleigh's simply really new to the game as a competitor to an increasing number of formerly larger and legacy cities. It's like the kid who grew 4 inches over the Summer between 7th and 8th grade. As a city and a metro, it's been rapidly climbing the ranks, knocking on the door, and passing city after city and metro after metro. Even after the OMB split the Triangle into two pieces & left NC's second largest city with a relatively small land area MSA, Raleigh continued to pick them off without Durham.
Raleigh and its county continue to add the lion's share of growth to the Triangle as a whole. It's rapidly gaining on KC's population despite having less than half of its land area and, as I said in an earlier post, a highly limited ability to expand its footprint. In 2010, Raleigh's population was nearly 88% the population of K.C.; now it's 95% and gaining each year. But, the narrative on Raleigh is highly influenced by the past. In 1970, K.C. was more than 4X the size of Raleigh. In 1980, it was ~3X. Ten years later, it was a little more than double.
In actuality, K.C. and Raleigh are very objectively comparable with each having a sister city (K.C. Kansas and Durham) and both having a large and well off suburb (Overland Park and Cary). Unlike K.C. though, Raleigh is also the state capital and hosts the state's largest university. That's hardly "suburb of Charlotte" material.
As someone who grew up in a suburb of San Jose, I see a lot of similarities to how Raleigh has grown and where it's going. Like San Jose, Raleigh exploded during the suburbanization of America. Like SJ, it ignored its core as it expanded out with the American Dream.
Raleigh's legacy core, though continuing to support the state's business functions, was bypassed for new office parks and country club neighborhoods on its edges. In a way, that saved a lot of the old city's charming turn of the century buildings and neighborhoods. Today it's a city that's growing its core to match its stature. Things there are literally happening right now. 2018 has been a big year for the core with huge public and private investments coming to fruition, and 2019 and 2020 are gearing up to be more of the same. Thousands of new residents have moved into the housing that is continually being delivered into the downtown submarket. The dining scene has exploded on the shoulders of James Beard winning chefs and celebrated new venues. This is all happening because of the city's fundamentals that Mutiny77 mentions. That foundation has given Raleigh a highly educated, prosperous, and increasingly diverse population of entrepreneurs and enthusiastic professionals.
Economy: Charlotte/Raleigh beat both KC/St Louis in this area.
Education: Charlotte/Raleigh by a lot.
Crime: Charlotte/Raleigh. St Louis crime is pretty bad overall
Infrastructure: Charlotte/Raleigh. Although I like KC a lot, Raleigh and Charlotte's recent growth pushes both ahead. And St Louis is just too decimated by population leaving that it has many city vacant lots and abandoned structures to win this.
Transportation: As of right now, St Louis may win this--but Charlotte and/or Raleigh will easily surpass in next 10 yrs or less.
Cost of living: Charlotte/Raleigh win again, for high salary, lower housing costs. St Louis/KC cheap, but can get more for buck in Charlotte/Raleigh.
Quality of Life: Charlotte/Raleigh
Future: Charlotte/Raleigh, no question, both are booming and have excellent, high paying tech, digital, creative, finance, education and healthcare jobs in abundance. Hot spots for sure.
The allure of Raleigh isn't that it's sexy or glitzy or trendy but that it gets nearly all of the basics right. Raleigh itself has low crime, good public schools, and competent local government. Then in the Triangle overall, you have an abundance of good jobs that pay well (RTP, the universities, state government, hospitals, etc.), a low cost of living, and warm/moderate weather. I can tell that by asking that question, you probably aren't raising school-age children--and neither am I, but I recognize that families drive a lot of domestic growth in our metros and the things that Raleigh gets right makes it very appealing for families. For me, as a Black professional, Raleigh/the Triangle also has a certain appeal with a sizable Black professional population and the fact that it hits that sweet spot of good jobs/good public schools/low cost of living means that it would be easier to build wealth there through home ownership and growing earning potential over time.
If Raleigh were a little closer to Charlotte, it would be the second city of the metro and not a suburb...basically what St. Paul is to Minneapolis.
And no, Charlotte isn't carrying all the weight on its side of this comparison at all. Education goes to Raleigh and going by the typical indicators used (e.g., crime, COL, schools, etc), so would qualify of life. The mountains are about 2 hours away and the beach is just under a 2 hour roadtrip away as well. Mostly mild, year-round weather adds in the big lure for most folks.
You may not get Raleigh and it might not be the place for you, but it doesn't get the accolades it does for nothing.
Outstanding explanation of Raleigh--so accurate and spot-on.
I've visited Raleigh a couple of times since fall of 2017, and Raleigh has an absolute abundance of beautiful, quiet, charming lush, tree-lined streets with that southern charm still intact and a hopping coffee shop, antique shop, trendy market a short drive or walk away at the end of the block or at the "neighborhood center." Downtown is growing well and breweries, good restaurants, bars, trendy clothing shops, and really just comfortable neighborhood areas are popping up all over the city.
Add in North Carolina State University, Duke University and the University of North Carolina not too far away, and there is an ABUNDANCE of highly-educated people, and digital advertising/creative/marketing agencies and IT companies, as well as start-ups, are flocking to the Raleigh area to tap into the educational wealth here.
It's just a safe, quiet (for now), ideal place to raise a family, get a good, well-paying job, and send your kids to outstanding schools--all this while having access to hip, trendy and "in" restaurants/bars and the like.
Raleigh is a city that MOST all other cities have goals to be like someday....
Okay, I'm not going to argue with most of what you are saying. I personally think Raleigh functions and feels more like a suburb than a city which is why it's popular with families etc. It's not a bad thing, it's just not my thing.
However, this keeps coming up and it's getting old.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rnc2mbfl
It's rapidly gaining on KC's population despite having less than half of its land area
If you have driven around metro Raleigh and driven around metro KC, you would know that KC is nowhere near as low density any of its stats would lead you to believe. Central KCMO and the suburbs actually feel considerably more built up than metro Raleigh.
Yes, the KC MSA and CSA cover huge areas of land, but most of that land is rural. The urbanized portion of the MSA of KC is relatively small and compact compared to the land area of all the surrounding rural areas counties. The KC metro area is about 30 miles in diameter and has near all of the population while the MSA and CSA are much larger and almost entirely rural.
Okay, I'm not going to argue with most of what you are saying. I personally think Raleigh functions and feels more like a suburb than a city which is why it's popular with families etc. It's not a bad thing, it's just not my thing.
And this is why Raleigh continues to be successful: it doesn't appeal to just single millenials. Once they get married and have children and decide to move out of their trendy 1BR apartment in the downtown core, they can actually remain in the city if they choose because they won't have to sell body parts just to afford a nice home in a safe neighborhood with good schools. It's pretty sad and laughable that you try and misconstrue these things as negatives when they should be what every city should aspire to have. It's one thing to talk about development patterns, density, etc. contributing to a suburban feel but to say that a city that provides well-paying jobs, a low cost of living, low crime, and moderate weather "isn't your thing" is...interesting. I mean, Raleigh could just stop investing in K-12 education, cut their police force in half, adopt extremely strict zoning guidelines, etc. to become the city of dysfunctional schools, high crime, expensive housing, etc. that you (and a few other urban purists here on C-D) seem to desire, but I'm not sure if that would be wise.
..
it doesn't appeal to just single millenials. Once they get married and have children and decide to move out of their trendy 1BR apartment in the downtown core, they can actually remain in the city if they choose because they won't have to sell body parts just to afford a nice home in a safe neighborhood with good schools. It's one thing to talk about development patterns, density, etc. contributing to a suburban feel but to say that a city that provides well-paying jobs, a low cost of living, low crime, and moderate weather.....
Funny thing is, this actually describes Kansas City to a T.
Some parts of the city can be rough, but the suburbs often outdo Mayberry.
Can somebody please PLEASE explain to me the allure of Raleigh? Charlotte is okay. Sure it's sunbelty, but for what what it is, I like it.
But Raleigh just does absolutely nothing for me. If it were a little closer to Charlotte, it would be a suburb.
So other than growth and economy, this is not even close because Charlotte has to carry all the weight here and it would have a hard time matching up against KC or StL , let alone both.
A city is more than just number of people in a CSA or economy.
???
Raleigh is BOOMING!!Are you familiar with the Research Triangle?Charlotte is is NOT carrying all the weight.You really should spend more time in Raleigh.That city is on fire.Its been ranked continually as one of the best cities to live
Okay, I'm not going to argue with most of what you are saying. I personally think Raleigh functions and feels more like a suburb than a city which is why it's popular with families etc. It's not a bad thing, it's just not my thing.
However, this keeps coming up and it's getting old.
If you have driven around metro Raleigh and driven around metro KC, you would know that KC is nowhere near as low density any of its stats would lead you to believe. Central KCMO and the suburbs actually feel considerably more built up than metro Raleigh.
Yes, the KC MSA and CSA cover huge areas of land, but most of that land is rural. The urbanized portion of the MSA of KC is relatively small and compact compared to the land area of all the surrounding rural areas counties. The KC metro area is about 30 miles in diameter and has near all of the population while the MSA and CSA are much larger and almost entirely rural.
That is all
It's data, not a personal attack. I'm sorry if it's getting old to you. It's just illustrative.
Even if we removed 140 square miles of farms and woods from K.C., as was suggested earlier, that still leaves K.C. with 175 square miles of developed city. Now, to be fair, I'd also remove 9 square miles of Raleigh that is wholly a state park within the city limits. I could argue to remove more, but that 9 square miles isn't nuanced; it's a huge park. So, removing that 9 square miles puts Raleigh at 134 square miles of developed city for this comparison. K.C. would therefore have 41 more square miles and 24,000 more people than Raleigh. Raleigh's adding more people and will likely pass K.C. in 5 to 7 years. You do the math.
That said, there is NO DOUBT that K.C.'s legacy core is larger than Raleigh's because it was a much larger city when we primarily developed cities that way. But, if we are to believe that the larger core houses more people than Raleigh's (and there's no reason not to believe that), then one can only presume that the rest of K.C. outside that core is way less densely populated and suburban than it is outside of Raleigh's core.
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