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I think it's pretty well understood durham in the 90's and 00's was something of a blighted and reputation arguable deserved
it's just had a stellar climb after that.
Uh no. It has never been like that. I first moved to Durham in '86 and been living off/on there since the mid-80s (rental homes, etc). It's just a Black town which has simply created an unwarranted distortion of reality by many other people in the Triangle. Been doing downtown, 9th street, old South Square Mall, Fayetteville St (good soul food all up down), Hyati,etc for decades..only parts of east and north Durham that are kind of edgy, still nothing like edgy parts of DC.
For example, in the Charlotte region. I absolutely can't stand leaving Mecklenburg County. A small portion of Union County and Concord Mills are the only areas I don't personally dislike.
Now. Wilmington I love. I like the are. But only Wilmington and Wrightsville and the coast.
I'm not a mountain guy, but I dont dislike Asheville. I think it's great, just not for me because I am not a fan of mountains (completely a beach guy)
Winston-Salem and Greensboro are tolerable-ish to me. They're fine as day trips for me, I would not want to live there but it's alright.
I like the Raleigh-Durham region for the most part.
But the rest of the state I just really dislike. I feel uncomfortable out of cities and suburbs I guess.
I think it's pretty well understood durham in the 90's and 00's was something of a blighted and reputation arguable deserved
it's just had a stellar climb after that.
Nope.
Durham was great in the 90s and before. That's a totally undeserved characterization. Durham has been a fantastic and interesting city for decades. I used to spend a lot of time in downtown Durham at the Durham Arts Center in the 80s and 90s. I've never felt super unsafe there. There are the occasional sketchy areas just like there are sketchy areas in Raleigh and Charlotte. Overall it's been a creative and vibrant city for as long as I've known it (which is the mid 80s).
For example, in the Charlotte region. I absolutely can't stand leaving Mecklenburg County. A small portion of Union County and Concord Mills are the only areas I don't personally dislike.
Now. Wilmington I love. I like the are. But only Wilmington and Wrightsville and the coast.
I'm not a mountain guy, but I dont dislike Asheville. I think it's great, just not for me because I am not a fan of mountains (completely a beach guy)
Winston-Salem and Greensboro are tolerable-ish to me. They're fine as day trips for me, I would not want to live there but it's alright.
I like the Raleigh-Durham region for the most part.
But the rest of the state I just really dislike. I feel uncomfortable out of cities and suburbs I guess.
You do realize the most of America is rural and sparsely populated in many areas. Understandably the overall urban population is probably higher than aggregate rural, still America is rural or small town at the core. Let me help you, you dislike most of America....#Sad!
You do realize the most of America is rural and sparsely populated in many areas. Understandably the overall urban population is probably higher than aggregate rural, still America is rural or small town at the core. Let me help you, you dislike most of America....#Sad!
Big league sad.
I just think I like rural New England more. But I never have been in rural anywhere other than Ohio and NC.
In some ways, this place feels like a total cesspool. So many people here don't value education. So many think "so-and-so is doing real good these days...she got her a job at Wal-Mart, and I guess the kids are staying with their deddy some while she's working now, I'm sure glad he stepped up a little bit since he got out of jail! She said he even got his GED!" So many rednecks with their stupid, noisy jacked-up trucks and Mossy Oak crap. So many hog houses and trailers. The smell of turkey ****. So many drugs...I know they are a problem everywhere, but my goodness.
I wouldn't say rednecks are the problem. There is a lot of poverty in this state and I have a tremendous amount of empathy for the people stuck in miserable jobs in miserable parts of the state. I do detest Wal Mart with a passion. There's a thing not many people realize... Wal Mart is the largest employer in the country. It's the largest employer in half the states. NC is the ONLY state in the south where that is not true (UNC is the largest employer here, slightly edging out Wal Mart).
I think that encapsulates NC's dual nature very poetically.
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And then you have places like Raleigh. Fewer rednecks, for sure. But Raleigh just feels like a "fake" city that was built to appease the North Carolina elite and the transplants who came here to work in the Triangle. Sure, there are places to go, places to shop and places to eat, but it still feels...well..."boring." Bland. Like everything got built because it kinda had to be, as a natural progression...I do know that tech and health care things are going on in the Triangle, so I'm not talking about that, but more like as a place to live in general...
This is where I strongly disagree with you. Raleigh is one of my favorite cities in the country. I love the mix of old and new in its downtown, how it kind of looks like a small old city that had a big new city built into it. It has a ton of character and funky neighborhoods... it has the most fun downtown in the state by a very large margin, and it's incredibly lush and green. You don't really appreciate how ugly sprawl usually is until you go to other cities like Denver or Phoenix, where the absence of trees leaves the landscape brown and depressing around the whole metro. This is something I care very passionately about. There's a very strong culture on C-D of bashing on Raleigh, and mostly I think the people who do are complete idiots that don't know what they're talking about. They just hear what other people say, and they repeat it uncritically.
If you want to see what an actual "fake city" looks like, go to Nashville or San Antonio, cities that Disnified their downtowns into embarrassingly kitschy displays. Or you could check out Las Vegas or Orlando, the epicenter of fake cities overcentralized on tourism. Raleigh doesn't need a marketing team to invent a "theme" or a "slogan" for the city. It doesn't need to designate a tourist zone and hire a bunch of out-of-state chains to set up shop there, like all these other places did. Raleigh is just Raleigh. It's just cool enough to have everything you need, but not to the point that it's pretentious and self-aware about it, and that makes it close to perfect, in my view. It could be a little bit larger, but just wait a while and it'll get there.
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And even the things that I love about our state are all, well, half-assed. Sure, I love our Southern food, but it doesn't have the same culture as, say, food from Louisiana. I love that we have beaches, but they're nothing compared to the beaches in Florida. Yes, we have mountains, and they're gorgeous...until you visit the Rockies.
Okay...
All of those places come with tradeoffs.
-Louisiana has no good beaches or mountains. It's a big swamp. New Orleans is fun sure, it's a year round party. It also has poverty unlike anything you could ever find in NC, and the race relations there make NC look like a progressive utopia.
-Florida - You could argue the beaches are slightly better, but nowhere near the best on the planet. Go to the Mediterranean or the Bahamas to get cliffs and coves that add way more dynamism and character. As far as I'm concerned they're pretty much the same. Just a big sandbar with water really. One thing I do love about Florida is all the clearwater springs and caves that are fun to dive. One of my favorite experiences was snorkeling with Manatee. But... no mountains.
-The Rockies - I've spent a very large amount of time in the Rockies. I love the Rockies. That doesn't stop me from loving the Appalachians as well. They're beautiful in a different way. The Apps have lushness and a greater palette of color. Also more waterfalls. The Rockies have elevation which I do envy of course... and the tradeoff for living in the Rockies is if you lived there, you wouldn't get a beach.
There are tradeoffs to living anywhere. NC's strength is being a jack of all trades. It's a master of none, but you have a bit of everything here. In other places you'd be going cold turkey without one of the things you want. NC is great for the indecisive person.
If you want to see what an actual "fake city" looks like, go to Nashville or San Antonio, cities that Disnified their downtowns into embarrassingly kitschy displays. Or you could check out Las Vegas or Orlando, the epicenter of fake cities overcentralized on tourism.
Orlando doesn't qualify here; all of the theme parks and other attractions are outside of the city limits. Downtown Orlando is actually very nice and has more historic structures in place than one might think, and all the lakes in the city are a very nice touch.
As others have said North Carolina's cities are new. I get that they can seem fake, because they don't have the historic character or density that older cities with more history have. It's a common complaint about a lot of newer cities.
I love Durham, Asheville and Chapel Hill-Carrboro. I think the mountains of North Carolina are gorgeous and love going hiking and camping in that area. I purposely moved back to this state for this chapter of my life after living elsewhere.
Though I grew up in Charlotte and I've lived in Durham for a handful of years now. I've never lived in the rural eastern North Carolina that you describe so even though I am an NC native, that experience seems foreign to me.
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