As mentioned above, the Triangle/Triad have a lot of biotech and IT, so that might be a good area for you to base out of. Charlotte also has a large biotech campus that was just built to its north, although I forget exactly where. I also think Charlotte may be a bit more "conservative" given the heavy banking industry there, so that may be something you are interested in as well. The Chapel Hill/Carborro area is pretty "liberal", and the Triangle is a mix. But these are of course generalizations.
But if you like the Triangle/Triad area, but you are looking for land, open space, affordability, and more of a small/mid sized town feel, you might consider Sanford.
We are almost smack-dab in the middle of the state, and practically equidistant from Greensboro, Raleigh/Durham/Cary, and Fayetteville. So we have easy ~30min access to any of those metro areas, and are equally 2-3 hours from beach or mountains.
Sanford has everything you need, being a mid-sized city of around 30k population, but still has a mayor that will wave to you and probably know you by name. And if there is something you "want" that Sanford doesn't have, again, the larger cities are just 30 minutes away.
We moved here, by way of a quick 1yr in Cary, from San Jose CA and have been very pleased. In the short 3 years we've been here, we've made more friends and gotten more involved in local government, community, etc than we were able to during a decade in the "big city". It really seems like you can make a difference and see progress in these smaller communities.
Being relatively small, Sanford has a variety of housing, everything from rural farms, historic housing, new condos, to golf/gated communities... all within minutes of each other.
City of Sanford, North Carolina | Official Government Website
Live Well Centered.
Here are some maps showing Sanford's relative position in the state:
Live Well Centered.
Good luck!
Al