5 Pros & Cons of Raleigh metro (Charlotte, Durham: low crime, houses, neighborhoods)

[leighbhe]

Pros:

1. In high school (chapel hill high) the teachers would bring the tv's in the classroom so that we could watch the heels play in the acc tournament
2. basketball season!!! GO HEELS
3. Many different educational opportunities, brings lots of diversity to the area
4. Beaches, okay mountains too, but I am not really a mountain girl
5. humidity!!! Seriously, when you grow up here you walk outside in the middle and july and think, yep, it's north carolina summer at its best

Cons:
1. Duke fans
2. People complaining about eastern pulled pork barbeque
3. Duke fans
4. No IKEA
5. Duke fans

That about sums it up for me!

Leigh

[SuperGrover]

Originally Posted by Desdemona123

Not too long ago that is just what the cities in this area were....they are growing into major cities, but still have many of the smaller city/large town feel to them.

I had read an earlier post that called Durham "the Detroit of the South". It had me thinking I wanted to be nowhere near it without ever having seen it. Where on the scale between big dirty industrial city and quaint country village is it?.

[amsm196]

I heard something very similiar, many, many people have told me that i should avoid durham, they said thats the area of drive by shootings, gang problems and murders. Yet others told me thats not true. So i'm confused also. Maybe like any other city it just has a few bad pockets( areas ).

T

Originally Posted by SuperGrover

I had read an earlier post that called Durham "the Detroit of the South". It had me thinking I wanted to be nowhere near it without ever having seen it. Where on the scale between big dirty industrial city and quaint country village is it?.

[Desdemona123]

Originally Posted by SuperGrover

I had read an earlier post that called Durham "the Detroit of the South". It had me thinking I wanted to be nowhere near it without ever having seen it. Where on the scale between big dirty industrial city and quaint country village is it?.

It's closer to Detroit then any sort of quaint. I am not a fan of Durham overall...but that is just me....it's got good points, but they don't over-rule the negative. Others have different views and I know they will be around shortly to post them...lol!

It isn't, however, Detroit by a long shot (I was born on Outer Drive and lived with 2 hours of the place most of my life).......and it is on the upswing (thought how far is swings up has yet to be seen).

[Desdemona123]

Originally Posted by amsm196

I heard something very similiar, many, many people have told me that i should avoid durham, they said thats the area of drive by shootings, gang problems and murders. Yet others told me thats not true. So i'm confused also. Maybe like any other city it just has a few bad pockets( areas ).

T

It's true...but it isn't the full story.

There is a gang problem...probably more then any other in the area (though Raleigh and the small towns around here have them as well)....and chances are if there is a drive by....it's somewhere in Durham (they seem to be rarer in the area overall then other large cities, but that may be just perception).....but these things are limited to certain sections of the town.

The problem I find, and one that I have heard others express, is that I just find it difficult to figure out where these sections are and aren't...so avoid most of it (other then where I know I am going) as a matter of course.

Add to that schools that don't yet perform as well overall as Wake's....and people do avoid it.

I think it if was just my husband and me, I would look hard at the city....there are some great unique homes at good prices....but with a family, I won't risk the learning curve.

[Bull City Rising]

Desdemona probably means me and a few others when it comes to responding to the flip side of Durham. :-) To be honest, best bet is to look at my profile and past posts for some of the info I've posted. I've posted specific information about exactly what area of Durham is the crime-ridden section (I would disagree 100% with Desdemona on one point -- it is *not* difficult to figure out which these are... there are other working-class sections of the city, but none plagued by crime in the way that this single section is) and about school performance elsewhere.

Instead, I'm going to go back to the theme of the thread and say, what are the 5 pro's of why on earth someone like me and my wife (young professionals, two Harvard grads with one MBA and one soon-to-be-JD between us) would have chosen to buy in Durham, instead of other towns we could have afforded to buy in, like Cary, Chapel Hill, etc.

1) Livable urban community, not suburban. Neither of us "like" suburban life. We like cities, but we like small cities (I would go absolutely bonkers in NYC, LA, etc.) We drive most places, like anyone, but we like to walk to buy groceries, or go to the bookstore, or go out to dinner. I can walk to work on a nice day. We even walk 20 minutes each way to and from the movie theater at night to catch a show (in Durham! horror!)

2) Lots of families like us. We know lots of young professionals -- either DINKs or with small children -- who live in the neighborhoods around downtown Durham. Today we went for a walk to Duke Park (not affiliated with the university, BTW -- just a neighborhood!) and there were about 25 young kids with their parents, playing on the swing sets and little castle at this awesome, recently renovated city park. Go to Elmo's Diner on a Saturday morning, it's the same exact scene. I've made Dunkin' runs to Cary on Saturday mornings... the scene looks exactly the same, only more Subarus and hybrids on the Durham side. :-)

3) History. I don't want to live in a brand new shiny community that's stripmined the land and torn down trees just to create a "burbclave," to steal a Neal Stephenson phrase, with a name like "Olde Southern Pointe" or "The Villas at the Forest at the Prairie at Lake Yeehaw." I like working in a 150-year old former cigarette factory that's been converted into prime office space. I like living in a house that's the same age as my parents (who are, ahem, old.) I like knowing that the skyscraper downtown was built by the same architecture firm that built the Empire State Building. I like a place that has true character, not planned character.

4) The people. This is true everywhere across the Triangle -- the people really are great, neighborly, and friendly. I would have these same positive feelings anywhere. I do like that Durhamites, like our neighbors to the southwest, lean slightly to port in a country listing increasingly to starboard. I also love our neighborhood association ... NOT an HOA, but an organization founded by neighbors who 30 years ago decided to take back the blocks where they live from a then-bulldozing city.

5) Convenience. Besides being able to walk lots of places, I'm a 10 minute drive to Duke, a 6 minute drive to downtown, and an 18 minute drive to RTP. In a few years, when a new freeway opens, I'll be a 10 minute drive to RTP. Southpoint is about 20 minutes away, the Eno River State Park's just 10. Raleigh's about 40 minutes away... all reverse commute, no traffic.

"The Detroit of the South?" Hardly. But throw a tenth of Detroit (some of the bad... plus some of the Motown music spirit, a la the Piedmont Blues), about twice the measure of Ann Arbor. Take a bit of The Fan in Richmond, and some DuPont Circle from DC. A touch of Hyde Park in CHI and let's top it off with some Providence, R.I. and Lowell, Mass. for good measure.

_That's_ Durham.

[Desdemona123]

Originally Posted by Bull City Rising

Desdemona probably means me and a few others when it comes to responding to the flip side of Durham. :-)

LOL........You did come to mind easily when I posted that.

I do disagree with part of your disagreement with me....(how is that for convoluted ) ...the bad parts of Durham are easy for you to avoid because you know the city...the rest of us don't have that knowledge or the luxury of learning it on the fly. (However, as my post said, I don't disagree that bad parts are limited to certain sections...not the entire city.)

[Miker2069]

Originally Posted by Bull City Rising

Desdemona probably means me and a few others when it comes to responding to the flip side of Durham. :-) To be honest, best bet is to look at my profile and past posts for some of the info I've posted. I've posted specific information about exactly what area of Durham is the crime-ridden section (I would disagree 100% with Desdemona on one point -- it is *not* difficult to figure out which these are... there are other working-class sections of the city, but none plagued by crime in the way that this single section is) and about school performance elsewhere.

Instead, I'm going to go back to the theme of the thread and say, what are the 5 pro's of why on earth someone like me and my wife (young professionals, two Harvard grads with one MBA and one soon-to-be-JD between us) would have chosen to buy in Durham, instead of other towns we could have afforded to buy in, like Cary, Chapel Hill, etc.

1) Livable urban community, not suburban. Neither of us "like" suburban life. We like cities, but we like small cities (I would go absolutely bonkers in NYC, LA, etc.) We drive most places, like anyone, but we like to walk to buy groceries, or go to the bookstore, or go out to dinner. I can walk to work on a nice day. We even walk 20 minutes each way to and from the movie theater at night to catch a show (in Durham! horror!)

2) Lots of families like us. We know lots of young professionals -- either DINKs or with small children -- who live in the neighborhoods around downtown Durham. Today we went for a walk to Duke Park (not affiliated with the university, BTW -- just a neighborhood!) and there were about 25 young kids with their parents, playing on the swing sets and little castle at this awesome, recently renovated city park. Go to Elmo's Diner on a Saturday morning, it's the same exact scene. I've made Dunkin' runs to Cary on Saturday mornings... the scene looks exactly the same, only more Subarus and hybrids on the Durham side. :-)

3) History. I don't want to live in a brand new shiny community that's stripmined the land and torn down trees just to create a "burbclave," to steal a Neal Stephenson phrase, with a name like "Olde Southern Pointe" or "The Villas at the Forest at the Prairie at Lake Yeehaw." I like working in a 150-year old former cigarette factory that's been converted into prime office space. I like living in a house that's the same age as my parents (who are, ahem, old.) I like knowing that the skyscraper downtown was built by the same architecture firm that built the Empire State Building. I like a place that has true character, not planned character.

4) The people. This is true everywhere across the Triangle -- the people really are great, neighborly, and friendly. I would have these same positive feelings anywhere. I do like that Durhamites, like our neighbors to the southwest, lean slightly to port in a country listing increasingly to starboard. I also love our neighborhood association ... NOT an HOA, but an organization founded by neighbors who 30 years ago decided to take back the blocks where they live from a then-bulldozing city.

5) Convenience. Besides being able to walk lots of places, I'm a 10 minute drive to Duke, a 6 minute drive to downtown, and an 18 minute drive to RTP. In a few years, when a new freeway opens, I'll be a 10 minute drive to RTP. Southpoint is about 20 minutes away, the Eno River State Park's just 10. Raleigh's about 40 minutes away... all reverse commute, no traffic.

"The Detroit of the South?" Hardly. But throw a tenth of Detroit (some of the bad... plus some of the Motown music spirit, a la the Piedmont Blues), about twice the measure of Ann Arbor. Take a bit of The Fan in Richmond, and some DuPont Circle from DC. A touch of Hyde Park in CHI and let's top it off with some Providence, R.I. and Lowell, Mass. for good measure.

_That's_ Durham.

Probably the best post on Durham I've seen...Thank You for the first hand feedback!

[Bull City Rising]

So the passion and depth of my last post left me thinking, you know, I've been here a while... I should say why.

In part, hanging out with the fun folks on City-Data is a nice 'multitasking' break during the weekends/evenings (at times when I'm often on the computer anyway, catching up on the job or doing some volunteer work). Popping on to see what's new is a nice mini-break.

But there's a deeper reason. For me, it goes back to the early 1990s, the first time I came to Durham, with family on a college trip to see Duke, among other schools. I grew up in Orlando, as I've mentioned here before, and always loved things that were new New NEW. New highway, or shopping mall, or subdivision? Beautiful! I adored the new and abhored the old. (Mind you, at this time much of what surrounded the core of Orlando still felt "new" -- the expanding shock wave of suburban expansion that leaves in its wake ex-new strip malls and neighborhoods that quickly devolve into tomorrow's slums. But that's later in the story of that town.)

So I arrive in Durham, young and inexperienced in the world and so completely sure of myself. Mind you, this is just five years after American Tobacco closed; during a period when I believe Liggett was still open; before the new ballpark, or Ninth Street's resurgence, or Southpoint. This was a sleepier Durham. An old town.

I hated it. I thought Duke was just okay but Durham was awful. I wrote in a diary I kept during the trip that Durham was "like Sanford, only worse," referring to an older, historic, racially-diverse town with a wonderful yet unappreciated history. I hated Sanford, too. I hated the way Sanford smelled, the way it looked, the way no one could be bothered to open a Circuit City or a KMart where, you know, people might actually _want_ to shop.

I wrote Durham off my mind for years to follow. College happened elsewhere, and my job let me live in lots of different places. Charlotte, for one. Orlando, again. And Richmond, then the D.C. area. Louisville. Then Boston for several wonderful years with my best friend, my wife. And by this time, the suburban life I craved as an Orlandoid all those years no longer held the appeal of life in a city, in a place surrounded by history and a sense of authenticity, of place.

Friends of ours, inspired like so many others on city-data to "move south, young woman -- and bring your DH, whatever that is," opined they wanted to move to Fayetteville. We convinced them, based on feedback from friends, that they should really think about Raleigh. Or Chapel Hill. (Still, no Durham.)

After they got settled, we ventured down to visit them. My expectations were so low, I didn't have any. And, lo, we loved the area. The Triangle in general, yeah... and we got to see CaryApexRaleighCarrboro and liked them all fine. But we both really loved Durham.

So when the chance came for DW (why do people on here say DH but never DW? anyhoo) to come to grad school down here, we jumped at the chance, even over several other Great Schools in Great Cities where people want to live. We wanted to live here, and not Raleigh, or Chapel Hill.

Durham.

And we're staying. We kicked the tires in an apartment for a while, then bought a house. Started getting active in the community. Reading up on the news (the good and the bad -- Durham gets its share of both.) Feeling like it's home.

So, why am I here always saying good things about Durham? Maybe it's just karma, the payback I owe in some cosmic accounting. I prefer to think that it's because I was there once... making assumptions and misassumptions, judgements and misjudgements. And I like to tell people what those are.

This is not to say that Durham is not for everyone. It certainly isn't, and I would never presume it to be so. But I hate for people who might _really want_ the good things in a place like Durham to be discouraged by the same false impressions I developed so many years ago.

So. Hi.

[North_Raleigh_Guy]

Originally Posted by Miker2069

Probably the best post on Durham I've seen...Thank You for the first hand feedback!

I agree, well done Bull_City_Risinig!