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I'm guessing you haven't really explored Durham? Durham has a very rich black history and even now I'd say the black community has the strongest influence on Durham. Durham is one of a few cities in the country to have an MLK Jr. Day parade every year which I found interesting when I learned that.
You are correct. I've had a job interview and offer at Duke Medical and the area looked pretty nice. My wife and I hit a skating rink which also had a go-kart track and some other stuff there and that was alright. And, we hit up Southpoint mall, which was nice. But, that is as far as I go with Durham, so you are correct. Also, I just focused my discussion on Raleigh, which is what I am more familiar with.
HA! One of those old posts is mine. We are slightly younger than you guys (early/mid 30s) and just moved here back in November. First thing first, if you like bigger cities and the amenities that they offer you may not like Raleigh. Raleigh is one giant suburb with a small downtown area, compared to DC of course. And so with that, it's really not particularly walkable like Arlington, Alexandria, Bethesda, Capitol Hill, Cleveland Park, etc. That said, if you prefer the suburbs of NoVA then you'll probably love it here, it's very similar.
Housing is MUCH cheaper here. We were about to sink an inordinate amount of money into a fixer-upper in Bethesda when my husband got a call about a job here. Once we moved here, we immediately reduced our budget, it just isn't necessary to spend that amount of money on a house here unless that's what you really want to do. Personally, I think I'd rather retire a little earlier.
Taxes wise, FWIW, I now work remotely for my company and my paychecks went up slightly. We've found virtually everything else to be cheaper except for food and water. Food is about the same, the prices here are lower but the taxes are higher so it's negligible. Our insurance costs, electricity, etc all went down. Water is significantly higher. No major rivers or bays to draw from I guess!
The park system here is better and with all the lakes around it's easy to boat or wander around them for the day. Wilmington/Wrightsville beach is only a couple hours away and the mountains are relatively close as well. I do miss easy trips to the Bay though.
The only things I really, really miss are the Metro and excellent restaurants. There are good and some very good restaurants don't get me wrong but I really, really miss places like Brabo, Zaytinya, Obelisk, etc. Oh wait, and crabcakes not made with mayonnaise. Gross, why do people do that!?!?!
There is only one thing I hate about Raleigh, with NC being a swing state, the number of political commercials is insane and uber annoying. They rank up there with all the commercials in DC for Lockheed, BAS, etc. when whatever defense budget bill was up for debate or proposal decision was about to be made.
Overall we really like Raleigh, it's slower and much more laid back, the people are friendlier, traffic is non-existant, and it has most of what we were looking for so it's been a good move!
If anyone coud tell me what the neighborhood between/around Crabtree Valley mall and North Hills is, that would help me out a lot.
The only neighborhood by name I can think of is actually called "North Hills" (1960s-era 'hood built when NH mall was built, out in the sticks at that time. Crabtree was built in 1972), which may be why it is hard to search on that since NH now is generally used for the larger micro-area. Some real estate places have started calling it "Midtown", so you might use that in a search, though people in general don't really call it that--it's a marketing buzzword to refer to the older part of "North Raleigh" which is basically everything north of the Beltline (440).
DC people, please note that we have the BeltLINE, not the BeltWAY
The only neighborhood by name I can think of is actually called "North Hills" (1960s-era 'hood built when NH mall was built, out in the sticks at that time. Crabtree was built in 1972), which may be why it is hard to search on that since NH now is generally used for the larger micro-area. Some real estate places have started calling it "Midtown", so you might use that in a search, though people in general don't really call it that--it's a marketing buzzword to refer to the older part of "North Raleigh" which is basically everything north of the Beltline (440).
DC people, please note that we have the BeltLINE, not the BeltWAY
Thanks for this post. Looking at North Hills, I would never have guessed it's been there since 1960s, or at least that shopping area with the Target, Bonefish, Ramada Renaissance and JC Penney.
I have seen a few references to "Midtown" on some searches as well... I guess that's to give it a swankier sound.
All-in-all, I love Raleigh. I won't miss riding DC's metro because I gave up riding the Metro years ago, when everytime I was trying to hurry up and get home, only to get to Metro station and find out a Red Line train broke down on the tracks. That was it for me (although subways do make life easier overall).
Thanks for this post. Looking at North Hills, I would never have guessed it's been there since 1960s, or at least that shopping area with the Target, Bonefish, Ramada Renaissance and JC Penney.
That's because the "old" North Hills from the 1960s was a mall and a strip center. The mall (except for JC Penney, which is original--note how it still has that "anchor store" feel when you're inside--but then just open into outside, where the mall used to connect) was torn down in 2004 and the new, flashy North Hills put in its place. The strip center across the street (where the wine supermarket, Bonefish, etc are now) was a regular "plaza" strip with a grocery store, convenience store, small specialty businesses, a bank and a post office, for decades. The plaza was given a big facelift at the same time as the new NH went up.
In front of Bonefish (where a movie theater originally stood, best seats in town), you can see the time capsule that was put in in 1967, to be opened in 2017. I remember seeing that growing up and thinking 2017 sounded SO far away--now it's almost here! But the newer malls going up around town caused North Hills to be more and more dated. (its heyday was in the 1970s, including when it made national news because a sniper stood up in the parking lot and started shooting into the crowd, killing 4 people before killing himself. Memorial Day, 1972. That happened right around where the entrance to the underground parking deck is now) There are Facebook groups and such for "growing up in Raleigh" and even one for "old North Hills" and it definitely had an old, dated look. But, it was North Hills that put "North Raleigh" on the map back in the 1960s, when what is now the Beltine was the last big road going north. Six Forks Rd and everything else that way were 2-lane country roads.
You can almost see the decades go by as you travel north up Six Forks or Falls of (the) Neuse Rd--like the layers of an onion, the construction gets newer as you go.
BTW humorist David Sedaris (and comedian Amy Sedaris) both grew up in the North Hills neighborhood (I think family still lives in that house) and North Hills Mall is a frequent location of David's stories about growing up, complete with actual store names.
Some of those echo discussions my wife and I have been having. Neither of us are DC/NoVA natives (few are it seems). I'm midwest originally (OH) and she's Philadelphia so we have different perspectives on fast and slow in general. That's one reason RTP seems like a good compromise, at least from the outside.
What about from the economy perspective? DC has the federal government supporting the bottom of the economic base, but that also means you've a harder time finding non-federal support jobs that keep up with the cost of living. How easy is it to make the transition out of the federal consulting area and integrate into the Raleigh economy?
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