I'll be visiting the Triangle for the first time

[findingmesomeday]

I had an interview in NYC last July (the follow up to the one in Durham last June) and the cab from Penn Station to the office (near the theater district) took so darn long, I walked back to Penn Station. My husband, NOT a big city person by any means, was APPALLED that I had done something SO dangerous! Well, not only is walking down Broadway at 5PM not dangerous, you can barely move for the crush of people!

I felt perfectly safe in Durham when I was there too, though I only actually walked around in the downtown/Brightleaf Sq area and the Duke campus and surroundings, so perhaps I missed the really bad parts?

[dcgrl]

Originally Posted by Bull City Rising

FWIW, you're not alone. The Census data I've seen suggests that northeastern urbanites -- residents in Middlesex/Suffolk Co. MA, Manhattan/Brooklyn NY, Cook IL, etc. -- pick Durham disproportionately over Raleigh. Suburban county residents (and I'd include Worcester in that) tend to be more comfortable in Wake County.

That's a broad and overly-sweeping generalization, but I think there's some value to it. My wife and I moved to the Triangle from Cambridge, Mass. and after looking at Apex, Cary and the like, we felt just as uncomfortable there as you must have felt in Durham. We want to be in a walkable, urban place -- that was Durham for us, not any of the Wake County suburbs.

We Durhamites do get snippy about assumptions about being carjacked. Then again, I used to walk in Cambridge and Boston at all times of day and night, and never worried about that, but had friends who lived in Worcester and southern NH who were scared to come into Boston anytime, day or night.

(I can say from first-hand experience, though, that Durham is as safe or safer than any other city I've been in -- though you have to have a city-wise approach just as you would in a place like Boston or Phila.)

That's interesting--we're from the far-northern Boston exurbs, and wanted to live in Boston or Cambridge, but couldn't afford it. We now live in Durham and love it.

[Francois]

I felt perfectly safe in Durham when I was there too, though I only actually walked around in the downtown/Brightleaf Sq area and the Duke campus and surroundings, so perhaps I missed the really bad parts?

Yes, you did. All of that is the Western side of town, while the "bad parts" are Southeast of the downtown loop, kind of in the direction of the downtown public library. There are bad areas in other places too, but the "South Bronx" of Durham would be kind of the 4:00-5:00 part of the map radiating from downtown.