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Location: Chapel Hill, NC, formerly NoVA and Phila
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TarHeelTerritory
Growth is not necessarily always a good thing. If the growth comes too quickly or is unsustainable, it is better to have no growth at all.
NC's cities, as most people know, are very good at growing. In fact, they're downright booming. The challenge now is to make sure that the growth is sustainable and that new developments and projects will improve the landscape, not detract from it. Unfortunately, too many tract-type housing developments, strip malls, and big box stores, among other more "cookie-cutter" type developments, have continued to leave an ugly mark. What happened to people actually caring about the aesthetic qualities of architecture and not just low-cost this and low-cost that?
I agree with this. A large amount of growth that only leads to typical suburban-type sprawl rather than dense, walkable cities/towns with unique character will not make the Triangle an appealing place to live.
As a long term Raleighite, I can tell you that Garner has always had a redneck reputation in the county.
That said, it's just too darn close to downtown Raleigh to be ignored for much longer. That said, I have never liked the name Garner. It just doesn't sound pleasant in the way that Holly Springs, Cary, Apex, Wake Forest or Knightdale does. Then again, Fuquay-Varina seems to have been able to get beyond its name. God knows that it has suffered ridicule for its name.
You're not alone. It really does sound like the name of a small town thats nowhere near a large population center. In fact, there are three other towns with the name 'Garner' in the US. Missouri, Arkansas, and Iowa. And yep, they are small towns (The one in Missouri is actually unincorporated) out in the middle of nowhere, all under 4k.
Speaking of town names, there's a town south of Greensboro called Pleasant Garden. Typical suburban name, but there's nothing 'pleasant' about that town. It's very country through and through.
Anyways, Garner reminds me of the Charlotte suburb of Mint Hill. Mint Hill has kind of a 'redneck' stereotype to it, and even today many parts of it are underdeveloped. The two towns also don't really have much of anything that resembles a 'downtown' (Nearby Matthews has an excellent one for a suburb) It wasn't until 485 finally came through that any noticeable growth and development started to take place in Mint Hill. It's still far behind the rest of Southern Mecklenburg County in that category, and like Garner it's not particularly desirable.
The growth is coming, and it's already happening in Mint Hill. But in 10 years both will still have that country feeling.
Last edited by Canes2006Champs; 06-06-2018 at 08:40 PM..
... so yeah, let’s not dismiss the race/class angle, yet. And as another poster said I think Garner has been historically viewed as “country” ... so perception (on a few levels) is playing a role .
... but what about Cary? Wasn’t it “country” at one point?
I do believe the 540 extension would help, too... but I also believe Garner needs better, more diverse in town, closer to the Raleigh line housing inventory. That has to be addressed.
Well, yeah. Before RTP yeah I'm sure someone out there referred to Cary as 'country', but that could have been said for the whole state too. Even when Charlotte was being considered for NBA expansion in the 80's, it was being ridiculed for being somewhat redneckish.
In short, Cary highly benefitted from RTP. Then Apex and Holly Springs (the latter in 1990 I believe had less than 1k souls) and Morrisville all benefitted from the spillover. Garner hasn't, and probably won't, at least not unless DT Raleigh takes off like wildfire.
You're not alone. It really does sound like the name of a small town thats nowhere near a large population center. In fact, there are three other towns with the name 'Garner' in the US. Missouri, Arkansas, and Iowa. And yep, they are small towns (The one in Missouri is actually unincorporated) out in the middle of nowhere, all under 4k.
Speaking of town names, there's a town south of Greensboro called Pleasant Garden. Typical suburban name, but there's nothing 'pleasant' about that town. It's very country through and through.
Anyways, Garner reminds me of the Charlotte suburb of Mint Hill. Mint Hill has kind of a 'redneck' stereotype to it, and even today many parts of it are underdeveloped. The two towns also don't really have much of anything that resembles a 'downtown' (Nearby Matthews has an excellent one for a suburb) It wasn't until 485 finally came through that any noticeable growth and development started to take place in Mint Hill. It's still far behind the rest of Southern Mecklenburg County in that category, and like Garner it's not particularly desirable.
The growth is coming, and it's already happening in Mint Hill. But in 10 years both will still have that country feeling.
I remember as a kid sometime in the late 90s there was a commercial-gig for "Garner's Jam"......a little old southern lady always scheming to get more of it and/or pretending it was her home-made jam and taking credit for how good it was
As a kid (in Cary) I always thought it was some local yokel commercial like "Glassmasters" and always associated the town of Garner with that commercial. I realize now that most likely they were completely unrelated but this still makes me think of that and chuckle.
I always thought mint hill was a cookie cutter growing town that’s basically brand new and I view Matthews as redneck.
Anyway. I had step family from the garner area. Angeir & Garner and when they would go out, it was to fuquay-varina for golden coral or Wal-Mart.
It was so rural but not in a red neck kind of way. It was cute small houses on rolling hills with trees in the distant background. Very southern area but more of the blue grass and old school Charleston type vibe (as opposed to the joe dirt stereotype). They went to church, went to a huge barn that was a restaurant that serves BBQ type food. The entire family would sing blue grass in s big open field where a church would be. All of their houses just that Charleston type southern decoration. And I was just a gay Brazilian boy from a catholic family that didn’t really act religious.... I was mystified by such culture, lol
This was only like 10 years ago. But it was a pleasant rural setting.
My wild guess is that Garner and it's ruling political upper crust do not care about taking the developers money in exchange for the changes it would bring to their town.
There has been that discussion. Not everyone wants growth and others there want more of. However defining what is Garner, what is Wake and what is Johnston is interesting when it comes to encouraging development.
Uhhm- saying I suspected racism is not ‘throwing around the race card’, and I would strongly disagree that somehow all mentions of race are automatically ‘tiring and unfair.’
But, i’m so glad that generally the people who feel the way you do don’t tend to live in my part of the Triangle.
Idk where you live in the Triangle, but he's right. You were race baiting. About a town that's historically been viewed as a white redneck cow town. So that was comical. Have you lived here long? Doesn't seem like it.
What has driven the population boom in Western Wake is as much the newly built housing stock as anything else.
There were enormous undeveloped parcels of land in these towns. 540 made them viable for developers. They built neighborhoods full of homes that transplants never thought they could afford. The transplants came, and made these locations hot. The snowball continues to roll downhill-Western Wake locations that were basically barren land 10 years ago (Apex to the South and West of the Olive Chapel/Kelly intersection, anyone?) are on fire.
If you are going to ask the question "Why not Garner?", you have to look at Garner thru the lens of the person growing our population. That is NOT someone already living in Wake County-it's someone moving here from outside the county.
Where do you put a 12 Oaks or a Bella Casa in Garner? How does a real estate agent drive an out of town client thru Garner and sell it to them? Garner is not a blank slate like the Western 540 corridor was 15-20 years ago. It has a location and a history and an identity and a physical layout/appearance that simply doesn't attract the people that are growing the county.
Many neighborhoods in Garner frankly look a lot like the places that people left to come here. You have people leaving '60s Raised Ranches in metro NY that they sold for $600K. They don't care that the same house they just ran from up North because it was falling apart is $250K in Garner. They are going to roll that money over into new construction with a pool/club near a brand new Target and Panera Bread that is full of people just like them.
My wife and I did the same thing 15 years ago. We left a dumpy old house up North with tiny rooms, steam radiators, no central A/C, and no garage, and came down here feeling like someone had just handed us the key to the city. We never considered anything but new construction, and we never considered a location other than the one we sensed as being the place to buy. You could not have sold Garner to us then, and it's basically no different now than it was then.
On any given weekend, most Triangle towns have some sort of fair/festival/athletic race/farmers' market/food truck event or the like that can be used to market those locations to people looking around the area. In 15 years here I have never found a reason to go to Garner for ANYTHING except to buy appliances and an iPad on closeout when all of the other Targets had sold out of them. There is no notable restaurant to try, no little monogram/wine glass shop with a buzz amongst the women at Bunko or Swim Team practice, no particularly nice park to visit, no shopping/dining/entertainment destination like the new ones along the NC55 corridor-these are the things that drive the selection of a place to live, and Garner simply doesn't have a calling card.
Before downtown Raleigh saw a resurgence in white collar employers, Garner was inconvenient to the employment centers that transplants wanted/needed to be near. Now, it doesn't offer the type of housing stock that the downtown crowd wants.
It would also be nearly impossible to turn Garner into a "move-up" location for natives, as well.
I am not knocking Garner. It just can't be expected to magically transform itself into the next Yankee paradise when it is already something else entirely.
Idk where you live in the Triangle, but he's right. You were race baiting. About a town that's historically been viewed as a white redneck cow town. So that was comical. Have you lived here long? Doesn't seem like it.
35 years here. Shall I count the towns in the triangle I’ve lived in? Oh, and Garner is 35% black. If you had been here for longer you might know that while Garner is definitely viewed as country, it’s country with a good dose of soul. It has signficantly more black folk than any of the other fast-growing towns except for Knightdale.
And oh- I remember your last thread now. Did you manage to find a more conservative place to live yet?
Last edited by hellorebecca; 06-07-2018 at 03:06 PM..
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