Houston compared to Raleigh (Cary, Clayton: apartment, condo, trip)

[jfre81]

Originally Posted by Dire Wolf

^I think I lost you on that last post. The general plan with the light rail is to use existing rights of way wherever possible. Most of the acquisition of land is just for future stations. Not sure why that would have a negative effect on property value. If anything, I'd expect the opposite.

I'm talking about building more freeways, not rail. That's what the Triangle is doing.

They killed light rail there. I am of the understanding that it is not happening. When it comes to managing growth and infrastructure, they do a lot of talking in the Triangle but not much follow-through. Actions speak louder than words. I will be back in Raleigh probably sometime in March or April. Will it be better then than it is now or when I left?

Rail is increasing property values in Houston. The METRORail here makes a much better neighbor than a freeway. They could have turned all of Main Street into a freeway instead. That's the only way they could have made Midtown uglier. Instead we have a rail and Midtown has a new life - and will be where the two rail lines meet in 2012. It will be the hotspot for people who want to live without cars.

Raleigh will eventually need a new "beltline" or loop or something....maybe 540 goes all the way around or something. When new freeways are needed, are you saying everyone will just say "ok" and pick up and leave when the government tells them to?

@Claire_F:

No, not everyone can work along the rail line but if you do, living without a car is an option and you can go places besides work. It's hard to do here but it can be done. It cannot really be done in the Triangle. This is simply something Houston can offer that the Triangle really can't.

I "know" the Triangle a lot better than you think - I know people who have lived there all their lives in NC; ones who work or have worked as (or with) police, firefighters, EMS....they see a world you don't. Just because you're not looking for it doesn't mean it exists. Just because it is not on the news does not mean it does not exist. (my "field" is mass communications - I'm more privy to just how much BS you hear and read than most) You could buy any drug you want whether you're in Raleigh or Houston. Gangs are there. Property crime is there. If you say they are not, you are the one who's spreading falsehoods, not me.

[Redrover]

Boy, have I been enjoying "dueling cities" here! I currently live in Houston and have lived here for decades. I am just about at the end of my regular working life and we are preparing for retirement in the Raleigh area. I have live here long enough to have fond memories of life in Houston before life existed much beyond what is now west of the Beltway. I went to Lamar HS and lived in Briargrove until we moved "way out west" to Briargrove Park. (There were fields and cows on Westheimer across the street from Briargrove Park.) Having said all that, we have made several week-long trips to Raleigh and purposely gone out during rush hour traffic to see what it was like and there is just no comparison. What was to have been a great access from the west side of Houston and out through Katy, the Westpark Tollway now looks like a parking lot twice a day during drive time. Having to pay money to sit in gridlock is not my idea of a viable traffic solution. I live about 10 miles from where I work and it takes me half an hour coming and going. I just can't imagine fighting this gridlock for the rest of my life. Houston has many wonderful attributes (shopping, theater, restaurants, medical care etc.) but they are all overshadowed by the horribly planned traffic "solutions." I would rather eat glass than to have to get on I-10 in the morning - getting my jury summons fills me with dread.

Although my husband and I will come to (or is that go to) to Raleigh as retirees, we both hope and expect to work, at least part-time. So we can't live out in the "country" where jobs are scarse but still we know it will be a huge improvement over what we do now. We are not going to Raleigh expecting it to be paradise and we think we have very realistic expectations of what we will find. Sure there are other places we could consider but I have done a lot of research and we have visited other locations before finding Raleigh. My checklist included a decent sized airport (√), theater life (√), top-notch medical facilities (√), good shopping (√), four real seasons (√), nice people (√) and affordable housing (√). There are lots of other smaller aspects that we have also found there which makes it just what we're looking for but the number one, overriding feature of all, is the traffic that we will be dealing with in Raleigh will be a cake-walk compared to Houston.

Sure I will miss a lot of things about Houston. We have made a lifetime of good friends here, we have loved the symphony, the opera, the Alley Theater, Spec's Warehouse, the Galleria, the Azealia Trail, all the great eating places, Central Market and many other wonderfully unique Houston places. And if you are seriously ill, there is no better place in the world to be treated than the Medical Center.

But you pay a huge price for enjoying all those amenities and I don't even care about hot and humid summers we will be facing in Raleigh. In just a little more than two years we will leave here, with regrets, but eager to start our new life in wonderful Raleigh. (Claire, can I bring you anything...?)

[jfre81]

Not a bad trade-off for retirement....good luck. I'm told I'll never retire, but when I do, I probably won't want to be anywhere near a city. And the Triangle will be a full-fledged major metro with all the attendant problems by that point.

If you forget anything, I'll be dropping into Raleigh sometime soon...I gather I will have more freedom than I ever did (for various reasons I won't get into) when I lived there...maybe someone here can show me a good time. I can be much more patient on the roads when I'm not in a hurry to get anywhere. And I want to see downtown Raleigh when it is not complete hell to try to get around. I don't want to bother with parking on Glenwood Avenue. Which is why I think of how cool rail would be there...I like being able to hit the clubs downtown and everywhere in the seven miles between and not have to worry about parking or driving home.

[saturnfan]

Hi Redrover,

I've been here 18 years and am retiring in Sept at 62.

The humidity this week is really awful, but last week was good.

Hope you enjoy Raleigh. The medical care in the area is quite well rated.

[jfre81]

Originally Posted by saturnfan

The medical care in the area is quite well rated.

Did they ever figure out how they started sterilizing at Duke Medical with hydraulic fluid?

WakeMed....there's more to that place than meets the eye.

Why do the ERs there have carpet and uphostered seats? I realize that looks nice but that's not where sick/vomiting/bleeding people need to be. It's a germ trap. I was sitting in the WakeMed ER exactly a year ago to this day and time...

[Claire_F]

Originally Posted by jfre81

No, not everyone can work along the rail line but if you do, living without a car is an option and you can go places besides work. It's hard to do here but it can be done.

Thus, your previous statement that having a car is 100% voluntary is indeed untrue.

Originally Posted by jfre81

It cannot really be done in the Triangle. This is simply something Houston can offer that the Triangle really can't.

Again, I have a coworker who does not own a car. He walks or rides his bike to work. Other posters have related instances of people they know who rely on mass transit and/or ride a bike. So, your statement that it cannot really be done in the Triangle is again, untrue.

Originally Posted by jfre81

(my "field" is mass communications - I'm more privy to just how much BS you hear and read than most)

I don't know - you seem to be doing a fair job of spreading some BS yourself. Just sayin'.

Originally Posted by jfre81

You could buy any drug you want whether you're in Raleigh or Houston. Gangs are there. Property crime is there. If you say they are not, you are the one who's spreading falsehoods, not me.

I never said that there are no drugs here. I never said there are no gangs. I never said there is no property crime here. I said that the crime rate is lower - not non-existent. You need look no further than this website to see just how much lower - per 100,000 people (scroll about halfway down the page):

Houston - http://www.city-data.com/city/Houston-Texas.html

Raleigh - http://www.city-data.com/city/Raleig...-Carolina.html

I spent 36 years of my life in Houston. I've seen the changes it's gone through firsthand. Houston, and Texas, will always be in my heart. Both Houston and Raleigh have a lot to offer - there's no doubt. However, there are three things that just don't compare - there's less traffic, less heat (many fewer days of 90+ degree weather, cooler nights and lower humidity), and less crime in Raleigh. Those facts simply cannot be disputed. That said, Houston will be most cities any day when it comes to restaurants.

The OP was asking for comparisons between Houston and Raleigh. I gave comparisons based on the way life actually is here now - not what my fears of what it will be like 10, 20 or 30 years down the road.

[jfre81]

And at the same time, you don't know exactly what life in Houston is like right now. You may not have been gone long, but it's changing just as fast as Raleigh.

I prefer to say that owning a car is not 100% mandatory here. It's at most 85% mandatory. The Triangle is 95% mandatory.

[Claire_F]

Originally Posted by Redrover

Boy, have I been enjoying "dueling cities" here! I currently live in Houston and have lived here for decades. I am just about at the end of my regular working life and we are preparing for retirement in the Raleigh area. I have live here long enough to have fond memories of life in Houston before life existed much beyond what is now west of the Beltway. I went to Lamar HS and lived in Briargrove until we moved "way out west" to Briargrove Park. (There were fields and cows on Westheimer across the street from Briargrove Park.) Having said all that, we have made several week-long trips to Raleigh and purposely gone out during rush hour traffic to see what it was like and there is just no comparison. What was to have been a great access from the west side of Houston and out through Katy, the Westpark Tollway now looks like a parking lot twice a day during drive time. Having to pay money to sit in gridlock is not my idea of a viable traffic solution. I live about 10 miles from where I work and it takes me half an hour coming and going. I just can't imagine fighting this gridlock for the rest of my life. Houston has many wonderful attributes (shopping, theater, restaurants, medical care etc.) but they are all overshadowed by the horribly planned traffic "solutions." I would rather eat glass than to have to get on I-10 in the morning - getting my jury summons fills me with dread.

Although my husband and I will come to (or is that go to) to Raleigh as retirees, we both hope and expect to work, at least part-time. So we can't live out in the "country" where jobs are scarse but still we know it will be a huge improvement over what we do now. We are not going to Raleigh expecting it to be paradise and we think we have very realistic expectations of what we will find. Sure there are other places we could consider but I have done a lot of research and we have visited other locations before finding Raleigh. My checklist included a decent sized airport (√), theater life (√), top-notch medical facilities (√), good shopping (√), four real seasons (√), nice people (√) and affordable housing (√). There are lots of other smaller aspects that we have also found there which makes it just what we're looking for but the number one, overriding feature of all, is the traffic that we will be dealing with in Raleigh will be a cake-walk compared to Houston.

Sure I will miss a lot of things about Houston. We have made a lifetime of good friends here, we have loved the symphony, the opera, the Alley Theater, Spec's Warehouse, the Galleria, the Azealia Trail, all the great eating places, Central Market and many other wonderfully unique Houston places. And if you are seriously ill, there is no better place in the world to be treated than the Medical Center.

But you pay a huge price for enjoying all those amenities and I don't even care about hot and humid summers we will be facing in Raleigh. In just a little more than two years we will leave here, with regrets, but eager to start our new life in wonderful Raleigh. (Claire, can I bring you anything...?)

You have summed up my feelings entirely. Don't worry about the hot and humid summers - it doesn't really start seriously heating up until mid-July, and it starts cooling off in September. You'll really love the seasons, too. I still marvel and how the view outside my windows looks so different every few months. Last fall the colors were spectacular.

As far as bringing me anything? Oooh, dangerous question. Unfortunately, Blue Bell wouldn't make the trip intact. Just have some good Houston Tex-Mex while you can for me.

[Claire_F]

jfre81, you're just really hell-bent on putting down every aspect of Raleigh, aren't you? When you do come back, please leave your attitude in Houston.

[jfre81]

Originally Posted by Claire_F

jfre81, you're just really hell-bent on putting down every aspect of Raleigh, aren't you? When you do come back, please leave your attitude in Houston.

Nope, it goes wherever my head lays that night. It's laid in cozy suburbs and it's laid on the concrete streets of Houston. I've had my ups and downs. I've also come to look at cities in ways that suburbanites/"yuppies" do not. There are yuppies in condo towers here who are oblivious to the people in the abandoned squat just three blocks away. I've been one of the reasons you lock your doors at night before.

If I completely hated the place I'd go back just to get the rest of my stuff that's still in storage over there and not stop to smell the flowers while I'm there.

To be clear, the only parts of the Triangle I truly dislike are Cary and northwest Johnston County where I once lived. I do not want to spell out the reasons here.

Even in places I dislike I can find something appealing. There are some nice looking Yankee transplant girls popping up in Cary....they can distract you from the fact that their house looks almost identical to their neighbors' house 50 feet away.

At least before the storm, even the crappiest ghettos of New Orleans had some of the best po-boys in town for the brave ones.

My actual "hometown" of Texas City (~30 miles southeast of Houston) is a polluted traffic-choked petrochemical hellhole with the best Mexican food (NOT Tex-Mex - Tex-Mex is what we invented for the tourists to get them to come back here) on this side of the Rio Grande.