Raleigh The Troops

May 2, 2007 4:52 AM

After leaving Bermuda in the near future ( 6 year term limit ), my fiance and I will be relocating to the States. One place that looks great, based on demographics, trends, and our own personal requirements is Raleigh-Durham. We are actually going to visit for a few days in June to check it out. What should we do while we are there to get a good feel for the area?

What neighborhoods should we drive through? Shopping and entertainment 'districts'? Parks, Schools, Libraries, Gyms, Churches, etc. etc. How can we make the most out of our visit? She is an accountant. I am in I.T. We would like to have kids soon. We are both pretty outgoing, active, and down-to-earth. If you have lived, or are living there currently, what is your take? Good choice? Does it look a lot better on paper than it actually is? Can I really get a nice house for 300k? Does traffic suck? Cool people? What's the scoop?

posted by jasondigitized to society & culture (13 comments total)

Where To Live In Durham has some good info, as does Raleigh or Iowa City?

Can I really get a nice house for 300k?

Yes, you can still get a nice, small house in neighborhoods around downtown Raleigh for 300k; a friend recently bought a little one in my neighborhood, Mordecai, for $150,000. I've been told some realtors don't like to point you there, though, and just aim you at McMansions in the new developments, but the houses are there.

Does traffic suck?

Let's just say life is more enjoyable if you live and work in the same part of the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill triangle. Commuting from west Durham to east Raleigh during rush hour was not my idea of fun, and that was almost 10 years ago.
posted by mediareport at 5:26 AM on May 2, 2007

1. Live in Durham or Carrboro, not Raleigh. You can get a really, really nice house in Durham, in a good neighborhood, for less than $300,000.

2. In Durham, visit Guglhupf (a bakery/cafe) and maybe also Foster's (a restaurant/store owned by a friend of Martha Stewart's, but don't let that put you off) and then check out the neighborhoods south of that.

3. In Durham, also visit Ninth Street, particularly Francesca's dessert cafe. Sit down, have some coffee, watch people go by. It'll give you a feel for the town. There are neighborhoods near there that are great, too, though maybe a little more expensive than the places near Guglhupf.

4. Also visit Carrboro. I believe it's a little more expensive than Durham, but I'm not sure. Visit Weaver Street and Carr Mill Mall; that'll give you a feel for Carrboro. I highly recommend going to Weaver Street on a weekend morning and having coffee and seeing all the hippies and hipsters.

5. Schools are going to be better in Carrboro, because it's Orange County. I don't know much about the Durham schools, since I'm kidless.

6. Hopefully someone else will post about good neighborhoods to live in, in Durham. I've never conducted a house hunt there, but I know that the two places I've mentioned as well as north Durham (just north of I85) are worth checking out.

7. As far as commuting, you really don't want to be taking I40 in the morning or afternoon, but there are almost always alternate routes if you just look at a map. However, it's still better than any other urban area I've lived in, even if you take I40.

8. Also: Cary and surrounding areas are boring and full of people who have just moved to the area and McMansions, but the shopping there isn't all bad. Orange and Durham counties are both blue counties, Wake (where Raleigh is) is red.

I'll stop now, but do feel free to email me. I just moved away from that area and miss it like crazy. :)
posted by hought20 at 6:17 AM on May 2, 2007

We moved here (Durham) a few years ago from the Midwest, and we love it. You can get a very nice house for $300K, heck, I think our house is pretty nice and it cost less than half that.

What I'd recommend kind of depends on what your tastes are like--for example, if you prefer older, established neighborhoods or newer, 'planned' communities. It actually might be a good idea to rent for a year while you get a feel for what areas you really like.
posted by statolith at 6:47 AM on May 2, 2007

Raleigh is great. I second the recommendation for the downtown area, although it's getting expensive quickly. Check out the Oakdale neighborhood for great downtown values in addition to Mordecai.

Traffic is bad going to the Research Triangle Park, but there are lots of great jobs in that area.

Some good things check out if you decide to visit Raleigh:

* Go to Five Points and eat pizza at Lily's Pizza. Then grab a coffee at the Third Place next door.
* Walk around in the Glenwood South area. There are lots of bars and restaurants in this area as well.
* Like outdoor stuff? Visit Lake Crabtree county park and take a walk around the lake. It's just one of the beautiful parks in the area.
* Check out the NC Art Museum. They have great permanent collections and occasionally will get a really high profile traveling exhibition, such as the Monet show last year.
posted by Xazeru at 6:52 AM on May 2, 2007

Stay the hell out of Durham. It's becoming a ghetto. The reason houses are so cheap there is because there's so much crime and violence.

You can get a 300k house easily in one of the suburbs. Both of you will have skilled labor jobs, so I would just move wherever you guys get work. Here's my breakdown of cities in the RDU area. I know all of this info because I went to Duke for 4 years, and dated someone from Raleigh for 2, so I've pretty much been everywhere.

I'll start with Durham. The outer edges of Durham are really nice, and there are portions of West Durham that are really nice, but the rest of the city is a giant dump. I know I'm going to get crap for saying this, but under no circumstances live here. 9th street sucks, though francesca's is nice, it's nothing compared to the restaurants on Franklin Street. The people that like Durham are quasi hippies that haven't discovered Austin. The schools suck too. Most of the kids that came to Duke from Durham went to NC Science and Math, which is nearby, or private school. From my perspective, there's also an incredible amount of racial tension between Duke and Durham. If you must visit, definitely go see the American Tobacco Complex- that's probably the coolest thing Durham has to ever. If you want to get more of a family vibe, check out Southpoint Mall. It's pretty nice (for NC) and has a ton of stores, both indoor and outdoor.

Chapel Hill - great college town. beautiful scenery, and a lot more trees. I always feel a lot safer here than Durham. Houses are more expensive, but the schools are a lot better. Chapel Hill is a little more "Red" than Durham, but not as "Red" as Raleigh. When you visit, definitely go to Franklin St. Eat at Top of the Hill or Tallula's.

Carrboro - You don't know where Chapel Hill ends and Carrboro begins. Basically same town.

Raleigh - Raleigh has a pretty cool downtown, with a lot of dive bars and cool lofts, if you like that style. When you visit just go downtown. The rest of the city is just suburb after suburb. A lot of RTP seems to be like this.

Cary - Cary is an anomaly for me. It's far from everything, and has nothing, but is full of McMansions. If you want the house of your dreams, and don't mind living next door to another one exactly like it, live here. Total "soccer mom" city.

My suggestion to you would be to visit Raleigh, Chapel Hill and Durham, and find out which city you like best. Once you do that, you can narrow down to that city or a random suburb.

Also, you should investigate Austin and Dallas, but especially Austin. That's where I would try to live if I was in your shoes.

Oh yeah, and traffic. My only basis for comparison is Texas, but the NC road system sucks. They just don't seem to have the same thought put into them as the roads in Texas too. Traffic isn't as bad as Cali (yet, because there's not as many people), but if you're going from Raleigh to Chapel Hill or Durham during rush hour on a consistent basis, you're going to get angry. alot.
posted by unexpected at 6:58 AM on May 2, 2007

It is perhaps an obvious point, but each of the cities of the Triangle--Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill--have a very different feel, so visit and spend time in all three. I grew up in Raleigh and attended UNC in Chapel Hill for undergrad and law school.

Chapel Hill is the quintessential college town. In my biased opinion, it would be a great place to live. It is an expensive place to buy housing and to live. Anecdotally, friends of mine have not been able to buy houses in Chapel Hill, but have bought in nearby Pittsboro and Hillsborough.

Both Durham and Raleigh have universities, of course, but are not so dominated by them. Raleigh seems to me to be largely overrun with what used to be disparagingly called yuppies. Seconding unexpected, my sense of Durham is that there is a real divide between the wealthy and the not so wealthy and as a starting point to think about that you need only ponder the whole Duke Lacrosse charges and the spin offs and ramifications of that mess. The meme that Duke students are overprivileged a-holes resonates in the community, rightly or wrongly.

To me, Durham still has the feel of a southern town; Raleigh has been overrun by Yankees (including people like me) for so long that it seems to have lost that feel, especially in the suburbs and bedroom communities like Cary--of which it used to be said stands for "Corral Around Relocated Yankees." I do know people who live in downtown, so called "old Raleigh," and they love it there.

I still visit Raleigh several times a month for work and to visit family and I can tell you that traffic there really does suck. The city experienced huge growth and traffic engineering simply couldn't keep up. Also, there is virtually no public transportation to speak of. As the previous poster mentioned, commuting from one of the points of the Triangle to another or to RTP in the middle is pretty miserable.

My admittingly limited contact with students from the schools (judging some high school competitions; nieces and nephews in the Raleigh system) leads me to believe the school system in Orange county is pretty good. Raleigh is a mixed bag but has at least one very good high school. People seem to think the Durham school system is not very good, but I can't speak to that.
posted by pasici at 7:24 AM on May 2, 2007

Stay the hell out of Durham. It's becoming a ghetto. The reason houses are so cheap there is because there's so much crime and violence.

Nonsense, of course. Unless by 'ghetto' you mean $300K condos. Seriously, that's just a load of crap.

Great things to do in downtown Durham: The Carolina Theatre, the Farmers Market, the art galleries on Foster Street, dinner at Piedmont, Rue Cler, or any of the other locally-owned upscale restaurants popping up, shopping at Brightleaf Square, drinks at the Federal, live music at 305 South or Bull City Headquarters, exercise at the YMCA, the Durham Bulls AAA baseball games. Downtown is currently in the midst of a 'revitilization', which, though the construction is taking way too long, looks like it might be a great thing.

Others have already mentioned some of the other destinations in town, and I second all of them. Duke has a lot to offer the larger community as well: films and art at the Nasher Museum, a great radio station (WXDU), great shows at the Duke Coffeehouse. I personally don't care whether Duke students are over-priviledged or whatever, I suppose you could care about that if you wanted to, but I think there are better things to do with my time.
posted by statolith at 8:01 AM on May 2, 2007

Statolith,

Downtown may be undergoing a revitalization, but the city is becoming gilded. All those 300k condos? 1) Overpriced market, as has been discussed before, 2) they're 2 blocks from the county jail.

All those things you mention are nice, but I wouldn't base my decision to move there on any of them.

Brightleaf Square - nice, but every city has one of these. The Federal? Overpriced bar. Franklin street is better in both respects.

The Durham Bulls - nice stadium, fun minor-league experience, but would you really move to Durham to be close to them?

Exercise at the YMCA - gyms do exist elsewhere.

The Nasher is fun, but small compared to larger galleries in larger cities. WXDU? During my four years at duke, I only get reception once, while I lived on East Campus.

The Coffeehouse - It was a little-known secret that most of the drug deals on campus took place in the Coffeehouse. It almost got shut down last year because it had so many building code violations. Then It underwent a serious renovation, and great...now it's like your typical coffee shop.

I'm not trying to be snarky, but I just don't get what people see about Durham. A lot of the "charms" exist elsewhere, in a bigger, better, and safer form.

The violence is a HUGE problem. Duke Administration actively discourages us from walking around off-campus. Have you ever driven around the neighborhoods that surround North Point?

Durham is poor because there are no skilled labor jobs in Durham. All the companies have moved out of the state or into different parts of RTP. It's basically a dying tobacco town.

Durham has TRIPLE the violent crime rate of the National Average. It has more crime per 100,000 than New York City, and a higher murder rate than Chicago. This wasn't pulled out my butt, it is available here. This is from a town with 200,000 people.

Life's too short to worry about getting shot. (Which, after the Duke LAX events of last spring, we did)
posted by unexpected at 8:37 AM on May 2, 2007

Whenever I want to get a feel for a neighborhood, aside from just walking around in it and seeing what the "vibe" is like, I suggest going into a grocery store. Maybe even a few stores at a few different times.

A local grocery store, particularly on a weekday evening, will give you a pretty good demographic cross-section, and you can tell a whole lot about people based on what they buy (i.e., is it a pack-of-Marlboros-and-a-40-of-Schlitz kinda place, or a soy-milk-and-organic-couscous place?) Just peoplewatch; I'm sure it'll at least be entertaining and probably very informative.
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:49 AM on May 2, 2007

To chime in on a few points:

Parts of Durham are super nice, and Durham as a whole is underrated. It has, in my opinion, the best restaurants in the Triangle. Yes, crime can be a problem, but you can use the Durham Crime Mapper to help research neighborhoods.

Cary is a cesspool of banality.

I currently live in Carrboro/Chapel Hill, and while it's nice, it's overrated. I'd much prefer living in Five Points or Mordecai (if I could afford them).

Traffic does suck, and I really wish I could just walk or bike to work again. I commute 25 miles to work in RTP, and my coworkers think I'm insane for doing so. However, the commute is worth not living in Cary or Morrisville.
posted by malaprohibita at 9:07 AM on May 2, 2007

I love living in Carrboro, but my perception is skewed by the fact that I moved to this tiny hamlet from a city of 17 million, where tough times were had by all. I enjoy the quiet, even soothing pace of life in Carrboro. Plus, outside of Asheville, it is the most liberal place in all of NC (that may either attract or repel you). It would be tough to find a decent house here, though, for under US$ 300,000. Plus, it takes about a half hour to get to the RTP from here, if you work in IT. That should definitely be taken into consideration.
Whatever you do, I must echo the posters above and warn you away from Cary, and from the Brier Creek region in Raleigh - Death by strip mall.
posted by msali at 9:45 AM on May 2, 2007

I'd much prefer living in Five Points or Mordecai (if I could afford them).

I share a large rented house in Mordecai; it's very affordable. And like I said above, I know plenty of not-rich folks who've bought or rented nice homes here and elsewhere near downtown Raleigh/Five Points. I'm not an expert, but it seems to me there's plenty of cheap housing in Raleigh, especially if you avoid real estate agents who steer you to the suburbs or ultra-expensive new downtown condos.

I've lived in Chapel Hill, Durham *and* Raleigh, and enjoyed them all in slightly different ways, but despite its spread-out nature and more conservative reputation, Raleigh definitely has a liberal inside-the-beltline core as well as a growing arts and culture scene - lots of creative types starting businesses and making things happen, even as the yuppies start moving into downtown apartments in larger numbers. It's not as vibrant as it could be, but it's been getting better for a while now.
posted by mediareport at 9:41 PM on May 2, 2007

jasondigitized - You didn't say what your personal requirements or citizenship were, but you might want to consider other places. I've only visited the Raleigh-Durham area once. I fully expected to love it and was a bit underwhelmed.
posted by lukemeister at 5:48 PM on May 3, 2007