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Durham is kind of bipolar. On the one hand it has a very nice up and coming downtown, DPAC, incredible medical facilities, and RTP is actually like 75% located in Durham, not Raleigh. It also has some very dangerous parts of town and a very blue collar culture. It seems contradictory, but somehow it all blends in together in a way that is distinctly Durham. The city has a very distinct cultural identity.
Isn't that pretty much dead now? Too bad because Wilmington used to be known as Hollywood East.
Well...it was rolling at about $150-250 million a yr before the current legislature came in. It went to about $40-50 million after that. They did expand incentives to about $30 million and were likely going to get close to $90 mill this year but the HB2 stuff has thrown a huge wrench into that.
That's a good comparison but more of a smaller Memphis without the RTP.
Not sure of what you mean here, mind elaborating?
To me the Baltimore comparison was quite smart. If you look at Durham's largest employers it is dominated Duke University/Duke Hospital and the other things that stand out are related STEM companies in RTP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durham...rolina#Economy
I also feel like the Triangle is really more or less 2 population areas. Durham, Chapel Hill, Carborro, Hillsborough being one (and maybe Mebane); and Wake County being the other. My house in Clayton is 12 miles from the exit to downtown Raleigh, but I'm like over an hour away from Carborro. Yet, I feel like Chapel Hill-Carborro is often thought of as more "triangle" than Clayton; which is fine with me BTW, but it just illustrates my point of 2 population areas.
Well officially that's exactly what they are. It is the Durham-Chapel Hill metro area and the Raleigh-Cary metro area.
That's a good comparison but more of a smaller Memphis without the RTP.
Hmmm why Memphis? I say Baltimore because there are large swaths of the city proper that have high crime levels and are run down, yet you have all the federal installations in the suburbs (SSA, CMS, Fort Meade/NSA) that are full of highly-educated, highly-paid white-collar workers, similar to RTP. Neither city has any F500 headquarters. Plus each has an elite university with a big medical presence, a large public HBCU, and are seen as the second city in their regions. Both have a strong tobacco legacy and DBAP and Camden Yards were both designed by the same firm.
Durham is kind of bipolar. On the one hand it has a very nice up and coming downtown, DPAC, incredible medical facilities, and RTP is actually like 75% located in Durham, not Raleigh. It also has some very dangerous parts of town and a very blue collar culture. It seems contradictory, but somehow it all blends in together in a way that is distinctly Durham. The city has a very distinct cultural identity.
I also feel like the Triangle is really more or less 2 population areas. Durham, Chapel Hill, Carborro, Hillsborough being one (and maybe Mebane); and Wake County being the other. My house in Clayton is 12 miles from the exit to downtown Raleigh, but I'm like over an hour away from Carborro. Yet, I feel like Chapel Hill-Carborro is often thought of as more "triangle" than Clayton; which is fine with me BTW, but it just illustrates my point of 2 population areas. This isn't Minneapolis-St Paul.
Points of clarification.
RTP proper does not belong to any municipality though it does straddle Durham and Wake Counties with the large majority of it in Durham County. I am not certain of the % in Durham County but I think it's somewhere in the 65-70% range. It's misleading to say that it's "not in Raleigh" because it's also "not in Durham". It's its own entity in two counties.
The Triangle CSA, inclusive of all the metropolitan areas you mention is sitting at 2,117,103 as of last July. The totality of the Triangle has been growing by nearly 2% a year since the last Census. I imagine that growth is picking up in the second half of the decade though due to better economic conditions of the second half of it. The Triangle CSA is on pace to blow bast 2,300,000 this decade.
Your experience of the Triangle is your experience. I understand and validate that. It's not difficult to understand how someone on the far eastern side of the Triangle feels disconnected from the western parts of the Triangle. That said, I have a colleague who lives further southeast of Clayton in Johnston Co. and commutes to RTP daily. Don't presume that your experience of the Triangle is everyone's in the Raleigh-Cary MSA. For example, those in West Cary (in the Raleigh metro) are actually closer to DT Durham and Chapel Hill than they are to DT Raleigh.
Hmmm why Memphis? I say Baltimore because there are large swaths of the city proper that have high crime levels and are run down, yet you have all the federal installations in the suburbs (SSA, CMS, Fort Meade/NSA) that are full of highly-educated, highly-paid white-collar workers, similar to RTP. Neither city has any F500 headquarters. Plus each has an elite university with a big medical presence, a large public HBCU, and are seen as the second city in their regions. Both have a strong tobacco legacy and DBAP and Camden Yards were both designed by the same firm.
South, demographics, culture, etc. Durham also has a jazz and blues history...
While Greensboro may have more restaurants, Durham has a MUCH better quality of restaurants. Think Applebees vs. Award winning locals. Pick up a recent copy of Our State. Nary an article about restaurants in Greensboro, but lots about Durham.
What Greensboro has is often overlooked. There's a good collection of restaurants around Market Street near UNCG, and downtown. Similar to Durham's collection on 9th street and in its own downtown. Some pretty good breweries as well, still more per capita than Charlotte.
It's a funky place, and it is improving. But it does have flaws... particularly the ugliness of the developments along the I-40 corridor.
Quote:
Originally Posted by michgc
But I do agree with you, Greensboro was a big letdown for me. I visited it for the first time in 1998, and was excited to see it, thinking it would be a charming small city that I might want to move to. Instead, I saw sprawl and an uninspiring downtown. I have been visiting it ever since, and it still has never charmed me, even with all of its growth. But my mother-in-law loved living in Greensboro as did my husband. I just don't get it. Different strokes for different folks, I guess. I will say that the people in Greensboro are very friendly.
Durham is just as sprawled and has a small downtown for its size as well. Bear in mind, I love downtown Durham and go there quite often, but it literally has blocks and blocks of deadzones in it still. Half of the beautiful historic buildings are empty, and you're literally surrounded by barbed wired low rent car dealers at Fullsteam for instance. While Greensboro has a surface parking lot pandemic. Both cities are very much 'diamonds in the rough'.
Well jumping in this late, I say Durham. I will say that Greensboro to me has always been underrated and has lots of potential. Many of the developments going on Downtown are headed in the right direction. And I think Revolution Mill will be really nice once done and like that they are going to connect it to the downtown greenway project.
@Vatnos you also have the motorco, the pit, geer st market, cocoa cinnamon, skate park, YMCA, farmers market, regular food trucks, to name a few that's by Fullstream.
As far as crime goes, and don't get me wrong, not saying it isn't a issue, but I never feel unsafe in Durham. Living in Cary I can be in Durham in 15 minutes and I go all the time. And just like any where else unless you live in xzy area I just don't see the danger. 99% of the time it's not like the areas that have crime are near anything of interest in the first place so it's not like you would be in those spots in the first place. There are people in the triangle that have let the news scare the sh** out of them so they avoid it like the plague.
Not in this debate and I'd still say Durham, But Winston-Salem is also slept on and it has a lot of good things going for it. Has a nice downtown, small but cool arts district, Old Salem, Wake Forest, Innovation District will invite more development Downtown, and for nature lovers it's a great location, 30 miles from Hanging Rock, 30 miles from Pilot Mountain.
I just think Baltimore is a more apt comparison to Durham given their similar "bipolar" natures (Memphis has the crime and blight but nothing like RTP or Duke), higher ed, economic profiles, and their status as the second city of their regions and the larger, more important city being a capital city.
Last edited by Mutiny77; 04-27-2016 at 05:23 AM..
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