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I might be a minority viewpoint, but I really like Garner because it's not like many Wake County suburbs, which seem to blur together more and more. I kind of like the blue collar, more laid back, traditional Southern vibe. Just like Cary and North Raleigh are places that the Westchester County, NY type crowd (nothing against them) migrates to because they feel comfortable in those surroundings, I see Garner as a place that someone from a more traditional southern area without so many transplants would feel more comfortable in. The diversity of places should be seen as an asset.
Does every place in the Triangle have to be an overly hectic, array of pricey homes on tiny lots and upscale chain businesses in fancy new buildings? It may eventually get more of that feel as the growth continues to push out (and then Smithfield and Siler City will be the closest places with the blue collar, traditional Southern feel), but can't it just be appreciated for what it is now?
Also, people who think Garner is "country" are making this observation in the context of its proximity to places like Cary and North Raleigh. If Garner were to be moved to most of the state's 100 counties with the same look and layout (minus the obvious different topographic differences in the mountains/coastal area), I would contend that it would be viewed as a fairly upscale and modern area. People only have the impressions they do because of what is nearby.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hellorebecca
To step away from the landmine I apparently planted. . .
I think this is a great point. Garner’s more country than Cary, but a lot less country than Smithfield, or Dunn, or Clinton. Maybe that’s something to accept and celebrate. Maybe it’s just forever going to be ‘the less developed part’ of the Triangle and maybe that’s ok. Maybe it will forever be the preferred homebase for those who prefer sweet tea and homecooked biscuits to fusion sushi joints, and maybe that’s just great.
Fair points.
Garner really should be celebrated for what it is: Somewhat of an anomaly highlighted by rustic optics amid the ever increasing posh, polished towns of Wake County.
I'd wager that the greater Garner area has the highest amount of "Country Cookin'" restaurants per capita in Wake County with maybe Fuquay as a strong second?
Have owned our home in Garner for 25 years. I get a chuckle out of the 'rural' comments here. I have never seen a tractor on Timber Drive but whatever. I don;t know one "redneck" in my two decades here. No one has a confederate flag flying over their home. With the nearly 50-50 diversity in Garner, I don't get the conservative label either. The people here are genuine, kind and respectful. My directly adjacent neighbors are African-American (2 adjacent houses), Hispanic (across the street) and Vietnamese. It's diverse.
The Garner parks like Lake Benson and White Deer park are some of the best in Wake County. Also the White Oak area is just exploding (Cary who?). We absolutely love the Garner area.
Regarding growth there things that statistics will not show you. There have been a few events that many may not be aware of that only long term Garner'ites (?) may know:
Besides the watershed that every forgets about...
Some things people are completely forgetting when it comes to Garner's growth ...is 540. Those that do not live in Garner probably have not been watching the fiasco the last 10 years of where to put I540. The infamous "red route" absolutely stalled growth and impacted us for years. For those that forget - the red route was going to cross through the center of the town and bulldoze numerous homes and churches and ruin one of the best parks in Wake County (Lake Benson). It froze real estate sales all across the town and outlying areas. People here were stuck and could not sell their homes FOR YEARS and people did not want to buy if a highway was moving in next door (or through your living room!). There were so many routes as possibilities it had a major impact. The NC legislature even tried to block the red route for a year. regardless... it killed any momentum for a long time. Thankfully that is over.
Couple that with the school busing of the early 2000's where the county refused to build schools in the lucrative and expensive acreage inside the beltline and instead built them in Garner...even though Garner did not show the rate of growth the same as they were building new schools here. That's a drawback to a county wide school system rather then township based. The big cities dump on the smaller towns to inflate their local school test scores. What they did was shipped those low income families to those newly built Garner schools. Now that's not bad neccessarily but with it came plummeting test scores. As a result some of the Garner schools had free and reduced lunch rates of over 50% violating the school boards own rules. ...and those students were not even residence of Garner but of Raleigh! When outsiders saw those numbers they decided "I am not moving there". It is completely unfair as it rose the test scores for those in SE Raleigh. Thankfully we got a mayor that finally fought back and blocked or froze some of of that construction. It is no longer an issue. Additionally I have read the various school websites and what they say, and every one of them are far from our personal experiences here in Garner. Schools with "better reviews" tend to be larger and have a PTA or parent organization that purposefully creates positive reviews for their schools. The smaller Garner schools do not have that type of web presence in their parent organizations.
But all of that is behind us now. It is finally changing here the last few years. My kids grew up in Garner schools and are now absolutely killing it. I would hardly say there were harmed. They are sitting in Universities right next to kids that went to the best private schools. Also the White Oak area is exploding with likely more on the way. Our standard of living is higher in many regards then Raleigh's so the blue collar jab is hilarious.
Garner is a great place to be. So close to Raleigh, has cheap real estate, though the commutes can be long (I am in software and have worked in RTP for 18 years and know I40 very well. ) I have worked on Davis drive for 15 of those 18 years (45-50 minutes), and for the last 4 years work on Harrison (30 minutes) in Cary. ...but more importantly Garner puts us 30 minutes closer to the beach. Plus Garner is on the books for being attached to light rail system should it ever become a thing.
We love the people here. It has a slightly southern feel unlike Cary where cashiers will actually speak with you.
And finally, in Garner we get all of the amenities of Raleigh (15 minutes away) for half the real estate costs. It allowed my wife to be a stay home mom for the first 5 years of our kids lives. We were never house poor, could eat out frequently, add considerably more to our retirement, and see all of the plays and shows Raleigh had to offer. That is a direct result of living in Garner.
Some things people are completely forgetting when it comes to Garner's growth ...is 540. Those that do not live in Garner probably have not been watching the fiasco the last 10 years of where to put I540. The infamous "red route" absolutely stalled growth and impacted us for years. For those that forget - the red route was going to cross through the center of the town and bulldoze numerous homes and churches and ruin one of the best parks in Wake County (Lake Benson). It froze real estate sales all across the town and outlying areas. People here were stuck and could not sell their homes FOR YEARS and people did not want to buy if a highway was moving in next door (or through your living room!). There were so many routes as possibilities it had a major impact. The NC legislature even tried to block the red route for a year. regardless... it killed any momentum for a long time. Thankfully that is over.
That dumb move by the General Assembly only added to the delay.
That dumb move by the General Assembly only added to the delay.
Sure did. Their hearts were in the right place and people here were appreciative because we felt under siege by the Fed. But in hind-sight it only served to stall things longer. Hopefully we are past all of that nonsense and they just build the thing where they said they would 20 years ago.
Mike raises a good point. We live in Johnston have a Clayton mailing address yet are not in the Clayton tax district. It is fully acceptable for us to say we live in Clayton. Our neighbors two blocks down also live in Johnston, not in the Clayton tax district with a Garner mailing address. Should they say they live in Garner or Clayton?
They live near Garner (or near Clayton), in Johnston County.
They live near Garner (or near Clayton), in Johnston County.
I at times prefer( especially to out of state folks) near Raleigh or just outside Raleigh. Heck there are Raleigh mailing addresses a mile away from us. The problem is when you say near Clayton or near Garner to out of state folks they ask " What do you live in the sticks"? Sorta funny now in the context of this discussion.
I was just out that way today. Did a U turn at the 70/410 intersection and came back down Timber Drive. Went out past White Oak and down 70.
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.
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.
Wow.
Strong stuff in that one, folks.
... and Funky, it has nearly 30k people ... That’s what’s astonishing. 30k and no notable festivals, no signature, higher end restaurant (we all love Toot n Tell but cmon now) ... just astonishing... the town will pick up steam, however .
I don't remember the details about it, but several years ago there was a serious narrative about the possibility of Garner being absorbed by Raleigh due to its inability to manage its city services properly. Does anyone remember that being discussed? Frankly, I don't think that's a bad idea. It's obvious by the replies to this thread that the town has an image problem, and inability to adequately manage itself as a town can't possibly be good for encouraging development, municipal improvements, etc.
When I drive US401/US70 business from downtown Raleigh and through Garner, I am always struck by how different it feels from the rest of the county. It's underdeveloped (not undeveloped), more sprawled, and feels stuck in the 1970s.
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) I have worked on Davis drive for 15 of those 18 years (45-50 minutes), and for the last 4 years work on Harrison (30 minutes) in Cary. ...but more importantly Garner puts us 30 minutes closer to the beach. 
