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The obsession with appearances. This is just something that I have never gotten used to.
It is not just about people's appearances, either. Somehow, the first things that are always noticed are what "things look like".
This confuses me. I was brought up to believe "never judge a book by it's cover." As a result, this has made me very self-conscious and somewhat preoccupied with what people might think...something that goes completely against everything that I believe in.
The positives:
1) Clean, attractive downtown, with lots of things going on.
2) Traffic not nearly as bad as people make it out to be. (Much better than NYC or DC!)
3) Affordable housing (though consider #1 below)
4) Much lower property taxes than NY and most of the northeast
The negatives:
1) Boring, cookie-cutter suburban areas, with a lot of so-so construction quality.
2) Horrendous supermarkets (compared to NY, by which I mean Wegmans and Tops) -- prices 15% higher for the same items, assuming you can find the same items. Poor selection, especially produce, bakery and seafood. (But there are some Trader Joe's locations, the one redeeming feature.)
3) NC DMV is a nightmare to deal with, and you pay tax on your vehicle, though in fairness the lower real estate taxes more than make up for that.
4) They call downtown "uptown" and I-485 has an "inner" and "outer" combined with a bunch of other names -- Seddon "Rusty" Goode and James Martin plus a few others. (I know, I know -- picky, picky).
5) Stifling humidity on calm summer days.
Overall, a pretty nice place to live. You could do a lot worse.
I was surprised by how many sunny days there seemed to be, as well as the number of people outside enjoying those sunny days. Honestly when I first moved to CLT I felt there people were out and about ALL the time, and it was really nice to be a part of that. Like other posters, I was surprised by how bright and sparkling Uptown was (and continues to be) as well as how many really great restaurants there are. I expected a lot of chains, and though there are in fact many chains in CLT, it also has a number of fantastic locally-owned restaurants.
What also surprised me was how silent the city is on a Sunday morning because it seems as though absolutely everyone is at church. This is not a negative comment - just an observation. I do not attend church regularly, so Sunday mornings always seemed like the perfect time to enjoy a quiet city.
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