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Why not include Louisville? It seems to be wanted by neither the south nor the midwest That's cool, we are quietly doing our THING here and it's rocking.
I met a Louisville resident the other day. He had lived in Chicago and Atlanta. I mentioned to him how I've "heard" how vibrant and liberal it was. He said he couldn't wait to leave and that it was very homogenous in thought. Not liberal at all.
Durham has far more of a creative spirit than Raleigh, which isn't necessarily a creative city. This is a tough question to ask, because when I think intellectual I think one thing, when I think creative, I think another. Durham is disproportionately high on both; Raleigh, disproportionately high on intellectualism but I don't think creativity...
There doesn't appear to be a great number of people employed in creative fields here and the creative events aren't at a really high number...
I also notice this thread has simplified the OP to colleges and universities, which is somewhere The Triangle would rank highly, but the thread doesn't account for context. Raleigh MSA is overwhelmingly NCSU, with a small percentage of Heel alumnus, and an almost insignificant percentage of Duke alums. The brainpower in Raleigh is overwhelmingly driven by and from NCSU and the smaller colleges in the city, and I see the mistake again of assigning "The Triangle" to "Raleigh" in this thread. This isn't something I'd expect people who don't live here to realize, but is yet another example of the distinctiveness between the two sides of the metro....
There isn't as much crossover from the Big 3 unis as the average person would believe...
So if we're giving the entire Triangle to Raleigh, it has to be taken into account that there are the same amount of schools within 50 miles of Richmond, as within 50 miles of Raleigh, and William & Mary sits just outside that, about 52 miles from Downtown Richmond (but about 47-48 miles from the eastern city limits); and W&M has a significant flow of alums to Richmond. UVA and UR are about 67 miles apart, and again, there is a significant flow of UVA alums to the city of Richmond...
Just adding some context here, it isn't debatable that Raleigh and the Triangle are the more educated city/region, but it is debatable that Richmond is the more creative region over The Triangle, and city to city, Richmond has far more of a creative essence than Raleigh, when the visual and physical arts and creative professions and events are taken into account...
Raleigh and The Triangle have the most educated population in the South, per capita, and one of the most educated populations in the entire country. So it's an outlier of sorts there...
Yeah I think most who aren't familiar with the region use Raleigh to refer to the Triangle as a whole, which is unfortunate as the Durham-Chapel Hill side of the metro (actually its own MSA, even if arbitrarily so in a sense) contains two of three universities that comprise the Research Triangle as well as most of RTP itself, and as we stated its definitely the more artsy and creative part of the region. Obviously the Raleigh side has its advantages as well being the faster-growing side and containing the largest city in the region and the state capital, but I can't think of another example of a multinodal metro whose secondary half is as overlooked yet contains most of the region's economic engine components. Of course this naturally leads one to ask why the Durham side isn't larger than the Raleigh side or at least closer to it in size, which is another discussion altogether. But suffice to say, I know that most who aren't as familiar with the region say Raleigh when they typically mean the entire Triangle as the MSA division between Raleigh and Durham is really more of a statistical fluke than anything and they it all functions as an MSA anyway.
But all of what was said about Durham demonstrates why I'm a fan of the city, especially considering the fact that much of its creative energy comes from its resident Black population and it has a storied Black history unlike many cities its size. As a matter of fact, one of my classmates from undergrad just moved to Durham to become the new programming director of the Hayti Heritage Center. He's definitely one of the creative types and does spoken word better than just about anyone I know and I expect him to thrive there, probably even more than he did in Charlotte which is where he lived previously.
Also, this is a good example of Winston-Salem's similarity to Durham (and Richmond) here. On the intellectual side there's Wake Forest and the Innovation Quarter downtown that's starting to get major traction (a piece just ran about it in the NY Times), WSSU, and the smaller schools, and it has a similar artsy, creative vibe with the Arts District downtown, UNC School of the Arts, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, National Black Theater Festival, etc.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gaylord_Focker
People are voting with bias. No reason for Nashville to have more votes than Houston and Dallas combined. Houston has Rice University, which is better than any university in Nashville. Music City USA does not equal intellectualism.
I guess that's about the best I can expect from you.
There’s a lot of broad misinformation there about the Triangle. Obviously the Raleigh MSA doesn’t have just a small Heel alumni base. It’s probably similar to the split between hs graduates, which sees a 3:2 ratio in favor of State. The two universities and RTP are outside the Raleigh MSA, but given the dynamics of the region, graduates (of the schools) and employees (of RTP) are more than likely living in Wake County.
As far as the creative side, it’s probably close to a push. Certainly that likely wasn’t the case 20 years ago when theatre might have been the only thing in Raleigh’s favor. But mostly the two cities work best when viewed in tandem. Because that is how it works. Separating out if Moogfest trumps Bluegrass, or whether Second Empire is the best restaurant in the Triangle is an exercise in futility. Living here means we don’t have to choose.
People are voting with bias. No reason for Nashville to have more votes than Houston and Dallas combined. Houston has Rice University, which is better than any university in Nashville. Music City USA does not equal intellectualism.
This is C-D where people misunderstand poll criterias. I remember when Atlanta lost a matchups with Portland, Oregon on which city had better cuisine and most posters were thinking about density/urbanity.
There’s a lot of broad misinformation there about the Triangle. Obviously the Raleigh MSA doesn’t have just a small Heel alumni base. It’s probably similar to the split between hs graduates, which sees a 3:2 ratio in favor of State. The two universities and RTP are outside the Raleigh MSA, but given the dynamics of the region, graduates (of the schools) and employees (of RTP) are more than likely living in Wake County.
As far as the creative side, it’s probably close to a push. Certainly that likely wasn’t the case 20 years ago when theatre might have been the only thing in Raleigh’s favor. But mostly the two cities work best when viewed in tandem. Because that is how it works. Separating out if Moogfest trumps Bluegrass, or whether Second Empire is the best restaurant in the Triangle is an exercise in futility. Living here means we don’t have to choose.
The Raleigh side has a comparatively small Heel alumni compared to the Durham side; Wake County overwhelmingly has more State alums + the smaller colleges in Wake alums, compared to Heel alums. There doesn't appear to be any information specifically chronicling this, so we're left with our anecdotes, personally I'd believe NCSU graduates outnumber Duke/Heel graduates at least 2:1, but again, there doesn't appear to be any real sourcing on this...
And of Duke/Chapel Hill combined, my guess should be at least two-thirds of those are Heels, but again, the combo of Heels/Duke is greatly outnumbered on this side. The influence of State compared to the other two is massive on this side....
The region functions as one large metro but again, some of the intricacies of the area most people won't realize, one of which being we are giving "Raleigh" credit for "Triangle's" arts and creative culture when the bulk of that culture is concentrated on the other side of the metro. You're always stuck on this, "but we're one metro" thing, but no one is refuting that. Its explaining to people who otherwise may not know some of the more intimate details of the local culture...
The bulk of the culture isn’t on one side, and neither is the Heel alumni base. Wake sends more kids to UNC than any other county by far, yet you somehow think it gets so few back? Like most everyone else, people go where the jobs are. Raleigh pulls in more than its fair share. I will say that Duke has a relatively small alumni base. They mostly head back up north.
The bulk of the culture isn’t on one side, and neither is the Heel alumni base. Wake sends more kids to UNC than any other county by far, yet you somehow think it gets so few back? Like most everyone else, people go where the jobs are. Raleigh pulls in more than its fair share. I will say that Duke has a relatively small alumni base. They mostly head back up north.
Lol what I didn't say was that all of the culture was on one side...
I can't offer a comprehensive opinion on most of these aspects, at least right now, but I will say that despite Nashville being known as a music town, I don't see too many artists with true creative merit coming out of there. Its country scene still dominates the collective consciousness, and that scene has been a 100% commercialized and somewhat soulless corner of the music world for a long time. I'd take the indie scenes of Austin and Atlanta any day.
What I said was the bulk of the arts and creative culture, not the bulk of culture in general...
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That's cool, we are quietly doing our THING here and it's rocking.
