Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I often wonder what the Triangle will be like 30-40 years from now. Coming from the north where the housing stock was generally 50+ years old, real estate prices and taxes very high, very old infrastructure and terrible roads, it's interesting to think about whether the Triangle will follow the same path and ultimately end up in a similar situation.
Much of the draw to this area has to do with the "newness" - new houses, new infrastructure, new everything. What happens when it's not new anymore? Will houses continue to appreciate even as they get older and more run down? Will people continue to want to move here even when everything is older and not shiny new? Will housing prices become incredibly over-inflated as they are in big metro areas around the country? Will real estate taxes skyrocket?
For me it's interesting to think about, and I was wondering people's thoughts. The town I grew up in in MA has become so in demand that perfectly good, but old houses are being knocked down and replaced with 4000 sf McMansions selling for 2M+ dollars. I realize this happens here, but here it's more about knocking down a perfectly good house and replacing it with 50+ McMansions. Once we're out of space for new development, will people still flock?
Lets face it - Raleigh isn't Boston, NYC, San Diego, etc,etc. Will the area maintain once the honeymoon period is over?
The Triangle's 2 main cores will be much more densely populated and the first ring suburban development within the actual city limits will become more coveted and more upgraded. Older and smaller homes in these areas will continue to be redeveloped and infill projects will continue to dominate.
The current stock of cheap, poorly built starter homes on the city edges will become the future homes of the underclass as they are pushed out of the city centers. Up-level suburbia will be stable, especially in areas with amenities like golf courses. Quality neighborhoods built in the 70's-80's will become the target of restorations given their closer-in locations.
Oh and I've said it before, but people seem so focused on their personal experience and can't seem to think things existed before they got here, but people have been asking pretty much the same question all my life and I was born here in 1970.
For one thing, the relevance of the "Triangle" name is ever-decreasing because a smaller portion of the population will actually live in Durham, CH, and Raleigh... or, for that matter, in Durham County, Orange County, and Wake County. Reasonable to assume that the populations of Chatham County, Johnston County, Glanville County, and Franklin County will double in the next 30 years. Wake, Durham, and Orange Counties still have some open land that's ripe for development, but lateral build-out will eventually use all that land.
The big unknown is whether the push for mass transit and vertical development in the core cities will be successful. I've got my doubts.
Will the area maintain once the honeymoon period is over?
Why do you assume this is "the honeymoon period"? You may not be aware, but the in-migration to this area has been a steady stream since the 1960s--it's nothing new. If there was a "honeymoon period", it ended about 1980. It didn't start the day you moved here.
In this time, the area's character has of course changed substantially, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. But I do agree that large flocks of people coming from the same part of the country are tending to bring the very problems they sought to get away from, with them (crowding, traffic, rising prices, a certain loss of gentility, etc that come with urbanizing but also with the population bringing them). Sadly, that will most likely continue.
Of course, the world IN GENERAL has changed in the past 30 years since "the honeymoon period"--we didn't have home computers in 1980 nor many other "everyday" things we have now, so life overall is completely different, and we can expect the same thing in 2045, when people who aren't even born yet will have been in the workforce for a decade. All of us will be "that old generation who complains how it isn't what it used to be back in 2015" regardless of what the situation is.
I remember having this same conversation in the 1980s, 30 years AGO--we tended to think the entire triangle would be one large interconnected mega-city, which is still is not--in fact, the traffic on 40 makes many people I know LESS likely to dash over to Durham or Chapel Hill than we used to, though of course there is less reason to as Raleigh has more things right here. We also didn't know the Internet, smart phones, GPS etc would be here, all of which have likely changed the area (and every area) in ways nobody could have imagined. Who would have guessed that "ordinary people" would shop for houses in areas they'd never been just because they looked them up on a computer in their homes and saw pictures, specs, etc from far away? What new thing will be around in 2045 that even futurists haven't seen coming?
And as for the draw being "the newness"--I hope you know Raleigh has been here since the 1700s and there are still many very old homes inside the Beltline. The "new" parts are mostly suburban, which is exactly like every single other "fast-growing city" that's developing land hand over fist. Those "old 1960s homes" around North Hills were sparkling new, and transplant-magnets too, at one time.
Why do you assume this is "the honeymoon period"? You may not be aware, but the in-migration to this area has been a steady stream since the 1960s--it's nothing new. If there was a "honeymoon period", it ended about 1980. It didn't start the day you moved here.
I don't believe I made any reference on when the "honeymoon period" started, and it certainly didn't start a year ago when I moved here. Relax, it's Friday.
My reference to the honeymoon period was mostly in regards to housing. The area is still under rapid development and one of the main reasons people consider moving here is due to lower housing costs and lower taxes. There will be a day when this delta is not as large, and the houses are no longer shiny and brand new. That will be the end of the honeymoon period that I defined.
Yes, of course there are parts of the area that were built earlier, but a good percentage of housing in this area was built 1990+. If you look around at some of the larger metro areas, a much smaller percentage of housing was built (rebuilt) in the past 0-25 years.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sherifftruman
Oh and I've said it before, but people seem so focused on their personal experience and can't seem to think things existed before they got here, but people have been asking pretty much the same question all my life and I was born here in 1970.
Again, I'm not sure how that's being derived from my post. Suburbia expands outward from a city (or cities) core(s), and this obviously is still occurring in the Triangle. Eventually you hit a point where people are forced to commute very long distances due to either affordability, or inventory, and growth slows. The Triangle is far away from hitting this point. Nobody is discounting that the Triangle has existed for a long time and growth has occurred rapidly through those years.
The big unknown is whether the push for mass transit and vertical development in the core cities will be successful. I've got my doubts.
I have my doubts as well but I think something will be better than nothing. Ideally, the push should have happened a long time ago - it may be too late now.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
