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OP you wouldn't enjoy Chapel Hill if you're looking for a vibrant downtown. I have lived in the Chapel Hill/Carrboro since 2007 and its not trending it the right way. Franklin Street has always struggled to retain tenants and COVID has rapidly accelerated that trend. Every other building is boarded up and for rent. At the main intersection, Columbia/Franklin every corner business is vacant. Chapel Hill is a virulently anti-business community and any time something comes up that doesn't fit their "strategic vision" its quickly squashed into oblivion and built in Durham or Wake County.
Greenville SC is a great place, why not just settle there? I'd say the Upstate of SC is more comparable to the Triad. Perhaps you'd like High Point?
Just because a municipality doesn't let the business community run ram shod over it doesn't mean it's "anti-business". Chapel Hill is a charming picturesque town, it didn't get that way or stay that way by accident. Businesses are free to set up shop elsewhere, Chapel Hill will eventually get the businesses that are the right fit for BOTH the business AND the community. Money follows demand, businesses will do what they need to do to be where demand is, there is a big demand to be on Franklin Street...or basically anywhere in Chapel Hill. Notice all the highest priced areas in the country are left leaning....New York, Boston, San Francisco, DC....Chapel HIll. People and businesses want to be in an educated area with their high disposable incomes which generally tend to be left leaning.
Oh thank you for reminding me again why I am looking to move, LOL! Love a lot about Greenville but a lot of it has to do with the proximity to other places!
Dude. You are a TOTAL conservative. "Outsiders"? Liberals don't use that word. Every person I've ever heard say "outsiders" has been a Republican and usually a very conservative Republican.
This is stretching it IMO. There's nothing inherently ideological about referring to non-residents/non-natives as "outsiders" in a general sense on an online forum.
This is stretching it IMO. There's nothing inherently ideological about referring to non-residents/non-natives as "outsiders" in a general sense on an online forum.
Having lived in deep blue areas of California and the northeast and now in a light blue area of the south, I can tell you I have never heard anyone refer to people outside of their region and state as "outsiders", whether be it in the spoken word or online word, other than Republicans and conservatives. Never heard a Democrat or a liberal say it or use that word online. Never. Not once. Not that it's a profane word rather is gives of the connotations of "us versus them" and xenophobia which is something one almost always associates with conservative..usually far right conservative...thought.
OP I have lived in Greenville now for 7 years, having moved from Raleigh, where we lived for 16. We love all that you mentioned about Greenville, but there are things we don't love about SC as a state. For that and other reasons we are hoping to move back to the Raleigh area, and are looking at Wake Forest. It has a nice downtown, with a lot of the things we enjoy, like a Farmer's Market and street festivals, as well as proximity to the shopping my husband loves. I will definitely miss the mountains. Lots more greenway trails and preserves in the Raleigh area than there are here, but not the same kind of hiking.
I have to agree with the gist of your post. Any good about SC...(I love Charleston btw)...is offset by the overtly conservative political climate of the state as a whole, therefore I could never live there myself. Even though NC and SC share "Carolina" in their names they feel like entirely different places overall. Most of SC feels like Alabama compared to most of NC. Greenville-Spartanburg may be considered moderate compared to the rest of SC but not compared to most of NC, and in particular not compared to the Triangle where it makes Raleigh-Durham look like New York or San Francisco politically by comparison.
Oh thank you for reminding me again why I am looking to move, LOL! Love a lot about Greenville but a lot of it has to do with the proximity to other places!
That is extremely perplexing seeing as though for most others area residents, being within easy driving distance to such a wide variety of places in the Carolinas and Georgia is easily one of Greenville's biggest advantages and selling points. Overall, the Triangle's proximity to other places is more or less on par with Greenville's, give or take. It mostly comes down to a preference for being closer to mountains or beaches between the two cities.
Having lived in deep blue areas of California and the northeast and now in a light blue area of the south, I can tell you I have never heard anyone refer to people outside of their region and state as "outsiders", whether be it in the spoken word or online word, other than Republicans and conservatives. Never heard a Democrat or a liberal say it or use that word online. Never. Not once.
It would seem that either the verbalization of the term "outsiders" is very triggering for you or your recollection abilities of all conversations you've had with people with respect to their political ideologies is practically superhuman. That's just not something that the vast majority of people would be able to recall nearly as accurately as you say did.
Even so, the liberal communities in which you lived do not comprise the total number of liberals in America. You can only speak about your observations but they only serve a descriptive purpose; to misconstrue them as evidence of something prescriptive on behalf of all liberals in America constitutes a serious leap in logic.
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Not that it's a profane word rather is gives of the connotations of "us versus them" and xenophobia which is something one almost always associates with conservative..usually far right conservative...thought.
Only if you ignore the actual context of DSMRE's post where it is clear he used the term "outsiders" to refer to those whom he perceives as lacking firsthand, up-to-date knowledge or experience with Greenville. That is a pretty straghtfoward use of the term without any political/ideological implications and you seem adamant about forcing a political label on him based on one word he used on an informal message board to refer, quite literally, to those who live life somewhere outside of the city he calls home. To say that this is just absurdly preposterous would be an understatement.
I have to agree with the gist of your post. Any good about SC...(I love Charleston btw)...is offset by the overtly conservative political climate of the state as a whole, therefore I could never live there myself. Even though NC and SC share "Carolina" in their names they feel like entirely different places overall. Most of SC feels like Alabama compared to most of NC. Greenville-Spartanburg may be considered moderate compared to the rest of SC but not compared to most of NC, and in particular not compared to the Triangle where it makes Raleigh-Durham look like New York or San Francisco politically by comparison.
A few thoughts:
For one, sure SC is more conservative than NC overall but this gives it two advatages relative to NC at the moment from where I sit. SC's state government is 1) more reflective of its populace and 2) less prone to engage the ongoing culture wars and whatever the latest specific battle was centered on. You may have more options for living in a state with more blue voters, but you can't escape the impacts of policy coming out of Raleigh from a state government characterized as more conservative than SC's for the past couple of years. So I'd say on this front, there are some trade-offs involved that don't make it as much of an open-and-shut case as it might initially seem.
It appears that SC is enjoying its new era of rapid population and job growth that began 10-15 years or so ago which is having a moderating influence on its conservative politics, state politicians have decided to tone things down so as to not jeopardize business opportunities, or both. It's the best case scenario under the current circumstances.
Intrestingly enough, back when NC and SC were first established out of the former Province of Carolina, one could say they were just as or even more than they are right now. The shared Carolina name speaks of a similar origin first and foremost, and of course other ways in which they are similar kind of reaches back to their common origin stories. They certainly aren't twins and neither are they completely and totally foreign to each othern; rather, they have more than enough differences between them to be unique and distinctive states but also enough similarities that makes it obvious they are definitely related.
As far as most of SC feeling like AL compared to most of NC, I'd say the two biggest reasons for that have to do with geography and demography. Your contrasts between the two states politically basically come down to Wake, Mecklenburg, Durham, and Orange counties in NC as the collective differentiator. While the Upstate is still the most conservative region of a solidly-conservative state, even if it were politically moderate, that would probably still be the case compared to *most* of NC. Let's not get carried away here. But even as the actual conservative place that it is, the serious and sustained desire to economically compete and win in a more globalized America when it came to the Upstate's job growth and overall economic climate thankfully led it away from a reputation that wouldn't have been so easy to shake off in the future.
It would seem that either the verbalization of the term "outsiders" is very triggering for you or your recollection abilities of all conversations you've had with people with respect to their political ideologies is practically superhuman. That's just not something that the vast majority of people would be able to recall nearly as accurately as you say did.
Even so, the liberal communities in which you lived do not comprise the total number of liberals in America. You can only speak about your observations but they only serve a descriptive purpose; to misconstrue them as evidence of something prescriptive on behalf of all liberals in America constitutes a serious leap in logic.
Only if you ignore the actual context of DSMRE's post where it is clear he used the term "outsiders" to refer to those whom he perceives as lacking firsthand, up-to-date knowledge or experience with Greenville. That is a pretty straghtfoward use of the term without any political/ideological implications and you seem adamant about forcing a political label on him based on one word he used on an informal message board to refer, quite literally, to those who live life somewhere outside of the city he calls home. To say that this is just absurdly preposterous would be an understatement.
So many other choices of phraseology..."newcomers", "people who just moved here", "people from other parts of the country". To say "ousiders", even in movies and TV, conjures images of hillbillies with shotguns pointed at someone from "the outside" whilst saying "You better git outsider! You ain't from around these parts!"
Like a southerner calling someone from the north a "Yankee". The word Yankee is not a profane or an insulting word in and of itself, a MLB team is called the Yankees, but almost always when a southern conservative calls someone a "Yankee" it's usually because that person harbors some anti-northern bias.
So, generally depends on who is saying it. The poster I initially replied to has some posts that could lead one to believe he is a conservative, conservatives who call people "outsiders" don't generally mean that in non-exclusivitory terms.
Last edited by ArrivedinNC; 03-23-2021 at 07:56 AM..
For one, sure SC is more conservative than NC overall but this gives it two advatages relative to NC at the moment from where I sit. SC's state government is 1) more reflective of its populace and 2) less prone to engage the ongoing culture wars and whatever the latest specific battle was centered on. You may have more options for living in a state with more blue voters, but you can't escape the impacts of policy coming out of Raleigh from a state government characterized as more conservative than SC's for the past couple of years. So I'd say on this front, there are some trade-offs involved that don't make it as much of an open-and-shut case as it might initially seem.
It appears that SC is enjoying its new era of rapid population and job growth that began 10-15 years or so ago which is having a moderating influence on its conservative politics, state politicians have decided to tone things down so as to not jeopardize business opportunities, or both. It's the best case scenario under the current circumstances.
Intrestingly enough, back when NC and SC were first established out of the former Province of Carolina, one could say they were just as or even more than they are right now. The shared Carolina name speaks of a similar origin first and foremost, and of course other ways in which they are similar kind of reaches back to their common origin stories. They certainly aren't twins and neither are they completely and totally foreign to each othern; rather, they have more than enough differences between them to be unique and distinctive states but also enough similarities that makes it obvious they are definitely related.
As far as most of SC feeling like AL compared to most of NC, I'd say the two biggest reasons for that have to do with geography and demography. Your contrasts between the two states politically basically come down to Wake, Mecklenburg, Durham, and Orange counties in NC as the collective differentiator. While the Upstate is still the most conservative region of a solidly-conservative state, even if it were politically moderate, that would probably still be the case compared to *most* of NC. Let's not get carried away here. But even as the actual conservative place that it is, the serious and sustained desire to economically compete and win in a more globalized America when it came to the Upstate's job growth and overall economic climate thankfully led it away from a reputation that wouldn't have been so easy to shake off in the future.
Well, you must not have been sitting in NC when the former Republican Governor of NC Pat McCroy, egged on by the GOP controlled state Legislature, passed the bigoted anti-trans bathroom bill culture war costing the state of NC dearly both in dollars and reputation. Give me a break. It's Democrats and liberals trying to protect vulnerable citizens and minorities from the bigotry and hate of Republican/conservative culture warriors who have been launching culture wars against Americans since Richard Nixon's "Southern Strategy".
The extreme conservative government coming out of Raleigh is due to the extreme GOP gerrymander of the state and not reflective of the state of NC as a whole...hence NC went for Obama once and went for Trump by just 4% in the 2016 election and just 1.5% in the 2020 election, compared with SC that never came close to voting for Obama and went for Trump by 15% in 2016 and by 12%.
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But even as the actual conservative place that it is, the serious and sustained desire to economically compete and win in a more globalized America when it came to the Upstate's job growth and overall economic climate thankfully led it away from a reputation that wouldn't have been so easy to shake off in the future.
