Raleigh natives (Charlotte, Winston-Salem, Cary: transplants, work, houses)

[raleighboy]

How many transplants have a real Raleigh native in their neighborhood?

[North_Raleigh_Guy]

Originally Posted by raleighboy

How many transplants have a real Raleigh native in their neighborhood?

If by "Real Raleigh Native" you mean someone born and raised here and not someone who moved here 30 years ago, then I have 4 natives in my subdivision in N. Raleigh out by Falls Lake that I know of. Could be more, but I don't know everyone in my neighborhood yet.

At work I work I know of 6 people born and raised here. None of them live ITB in Raleigh.....they all either live in Cary or Apex. Don't know why....I hope to move inside the beltline one day when I can afford to buy a house there.

[lynnsprufera]

There are two natives in my neighborhood. I only know of 3-4 other people who were born and raised here. Peolple from so many different areas make it interesting.

[Desdemona123]

Originally Posted by raleighboy

How many transplants have a real Raleigh native in their neighborhood?

The neighbor across the street is from Apex orignally. My daugther has one friend that is a second generation Raleigh native. Both her parents were born and raised here as well. LOL!

[RaleighRob]

I'm a North Carolina native, born and raised in Winston-Salem, moved here for college in '95. (So I guess technically I'm a transplant too. )
In my ITB neighborhood there are a good number of Raleigh natives...mostly the older generation. In fact, two houses have folks in them that have lived there since the houses were built in the 1940s! One has even told me she remembers before Wade Ave was built, and Oberlin Road was a dirt road.

Otherwise, I'd say the neighborhood is an even mix of out-of-state transplants, and folks like me who are from other parts of NC.

[citydweller]

I'm just curious how southern are the accents in Raleigh esp for natives? I met a native Raleighite while visiting but honestly I could hardly tell he was from the south lol. Another one I met sounded from the midwest. In saying that he did say one of his neighbors was a native and had quite a drawl. Also he said a lot of the older natives still retain quite an accent.

[Carolina_native]

Originally Posted by citydweller

I'm just curious how southern are the accents in Raleigh esp for natives? I met a native Raleighite while visiting but honestly I could hardly tell he was from the south lol. Another one I met sounded from the midwest. In saying that he did say one of his neighbors was a native and had quite a drawl. Also he said a lot of the older natives still retain quite an accent.

While I dont live in Raleigh but near Charlotte in the booming Lake Norman area, I was born and raised here.

Accents depend alot on being raised, and how people around you pronounced their words. If you were born and raised in the south but your parents moved here from somewhere else, probably not much of an accent. With all the transplants moving here fron non-southern states, a southern accent will become a rarity in Raleigh, which Im sure already is. Ill be talking with people and they hear my southern accent and people look at me wierd, "where are you from?"

Think its kinda sad actually, loss of some NC culture.

[citydweller]

I was born in a small southern NC town and I had more accent than any of them.

[Carolina_native]

Originally Posted by citydweller

I was born in a small southern NC town and I had more accent than any of them.

Yes, there are plenty of places in NC that basically the entire town or city (even growing towns and cities) where all you hear is a southern accent. And we have to take into account some transplants here are from other southern states.

But if you move to Raleigh or Charlotte areas, you can hear a New Joisey accent more common than a southern accent.

[RaleighRob]

City folk in NC have always had less of an accent than rural people, of course, but it was there....and on top of that they were traditionally, for the longest time, a small minority. Then you add the fact that most of the city growth over the years has been from northerners and that natives in most of NC's bigger cities are becoming an even tinier minority, and what little accent they had is disappearing.
So NC is now a state of two extremes: the cities & suburbs with their transplants having northern accents, and the rural areas with their native NC tongue. Not much of that old "middle ground" accent left.