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I have my doubts as well but I think something will be better than nothing. Ideally, the push should have happened a long time ago - it may be too late now.
For better or worse, I expect that half of Fayetteville Street will be bulldozed in the next 15 years. There are so many three-story buildings in the heart of downtown Raleigh, and the pressure to sell/redevelop will grow more intense every year. The block between Hargett and Martin is one example.
It's possible they can incorporate those facades into larger buildings and even if they didn't, many are not worth saving. They just happen to be old. Obviously, places like Briggs and Boylan Pearce may remain but they have more significance.
More apartment complexes will be built up inside the beltline, that's for sure. Downtown and North Hills will look even more trendy and modern like Austin, Atlanta's Buckhead neighborhood, and Northern VA. The Crabtree area is already going down a similar path, as I probably won't even recognize that area in thirty years. I could see them ripping down the current mall (built in the early 70's) and building a newer one, but an outdoor mall like North Hills. I keep hearing how indoor malls are declining, so that wouldn't be surprising. In general, expect to find familiar sights be completely torn down for more apartment complexes. This is happening like crazy off Hillsborough Street around NC State.
Regarding suburbia, eastern Chatham County will likely be completely suburban, or at least Chatham east of Jordan Lake. It's hard to say when you have the lake there acting as a buffer, but Pittsboro might turn into another Clayton. There are still pockets of somewhat rural areas in southern Wake County (south of Garner, east of Fuquay), and those will likely turn suburban. However, areas closer to RTP will become suburban first, like west of Morrisville/Cary and the new stretch of 540. We also might see more wealthier subdivisions popping up in northern Wake near Falls Lake, and maybe even into southern Granville (Creedmoor) but apparently Granville County schools are awful. Heading further east, I'm sure Youngsville will continue to grow. Definitely Clayton, as well. I really don't know about Zebulon, though. That seems to be quite far from RTP and the heart of the region, which could be a reason why it hasn't grown like other areas.
Good post by JayJayCB. I fear that all these changes are turning our region into another, latter-day version of Atlanta: overcrowded, geographically fractured, and impossible to get around in easily. Without a commitment to transit and transit-oriented corridors, we'll all be sitting in a lot more traffic in 20 years.
Don't think the infrastructure is new and scared for the area that I called home for a long time. Jordan Lake is a mess and that is really overlooked by most...
The triangle will officially be a northeastern or midatlantic state officially. Whatever they try to make NC nowadays it will be consummated when the rest of the transplants own it. An example of this is I was in Holly Soribgs at Walmart I'm talking to a woman who is obviously from up north and she says "are you from nc?"
Yes
"why do you talk like that"
I was thinking wth???? I said "like what?"
she says "you have a noticeable southern accent!"
Because I'm from North Carolina
She says "nc is not the south? I've never heard anyone hear sound like you?"
(That sounds like a lie to me)
I don't agree with it at all but some people say NC and VA aren't entirely southern, but just buffer zones right before you enter the Deep South (SC). People really need to venture out of their Research Triangle suburbs and visit some of the smaller towns right outside the metro if they don't believe we're in the South. The town of Creedmoor is a good example, only 20-30 minutes away from the North Raleigh suburbs but a world apart.
I don't agree with it at all but some people say NC and VA aren't entirely southern, but just buffer zones right before you enter the Deep South (SC). People really need to venture out of their Research Triangle suburbs and visit some of the smaller towns right outside the metro if they don't believe we're in the South. The town of Creedmoor is a good example, only 20-30 minutes away from the North Raleigh suburbs but a world apart.
I mean if you want to get really technical, anything Maryland and below could be considered South if you reference the Mason-Dixon Line:
Quote:
In popular usage, the Mason–Dixon line symbolizes a cultural boundary between the North and the South (Dixie).
For one thing, the relevance of the "Triangle" name is ever-decreasing because a smaller portion of the population will actually live in Durham, CH, and Raleigh... or, for that matter, in Durham County, Orange County, and Wake County. Reasonable to assume that the populations of Chatham County, Johnston County, Glanville County, and Franklin County will double in the next 30 years. Wake, Durham, and Orange Counties still have some open land that's ripe for development, but lateral build-out will eventually use all that land.
The big unknown is whether the push for mass transit and vertical development in the core cities will be successful. I've got my doubts.
I disagree with the notion of decreasing relevance for Wake and Durham Counties or Raleigh and Durham respectively. The jury is out on Chapel Hill in my book because I don't think that they have any interest in driving growth in the same way that their two other anchor cities do. I agree that the periphery/non-core counties' populations will swell and even double, let's look closer at what that might actually mean by using Chatham as an example. If Chatham's population doubles in 30 years, that would mean an extra 71,000. That's certainly a huge increase but it pales in comparison to how many people Wake has added just in the last 5 years alone. Wake is nowhere near running out of land to develop and core space in Raleigh for infill projects. Despite impressive % growth rates that are surely to come from the periphery counties, they will not hold a candle in actual numbers to what's probably going to happen in Wake and Durham in the same time period. Using actual population growth, I can't even remember when the last time was that either Wake or Raleigh didn't lead the Triangle in annual county or city population increase. Certainly the percentage of growth will be outstripped by smaller cities in the area that build on smaller base numbers but that doesn't diminish the role of the core cities and counties. It's very easy to imagine that Raleigh will be over 600,000 by that time and Durham around 400,000. Heck, it's even easy to imagine Cary well over 200,000. It's also easy to imagine 1.5 million in Wake and 500,000 in Durham County. I don't see how this would translate into it representing a smaller portion of the overall population.
On a side note, Wake tends to trend as being nearly 50% of the entire Triangle CSA population and I don't see that changing anytime soon.
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