Well we have City Plaza. It’s just struggling along with all of Fayetteville Street.
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Yes. That small area is nice. It’s just isolated.
The informality of that area of Durham is nice, but Raleigh’s context is highly formal as originally designed. Nonetheless, developers are creating more of these informal gathering places as integral parts of their projects like The Hollow at SH, the plaza between OneGlenwood & TwoHillsborough, etc. Then there’s the whole Seaboard project that I think will be more impactful than most people realize. The city has also done a fine job reimagining Fayetteville as a festival street, and reimagining Moore Square into a community space.
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City Plaza isn’t a real plaza. It’s a road with some buildings pushed out farther from the road. It also looks like crap. Grey, grey and beige crap. Useless you are okay with your kids (future kids) playing on that road as it’s primary a road and not a plaza. It’s as much a plaza as PNC Plaza is a plaza.
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It’s a pop-up plaza when the street is closed for festivals.
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Yeah hot concrete and bunch of food trucks with their generators running. Missed opportunity when it was torn up a year ago to redo it. Even the new bricks don’t match.
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wut?
How are they more target schools than NC State - the actual tech school in the triangle? This is why NC State is expanding its engineering school by 4,000 students over the next 4 years to keep up with demand. UNC has no engineering school although I suppose their computer science department is serviceable - having handed about 350 degrees in 2020.
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Hung up on drunktown ? What do you mean by that?
Honestly that’s kinda weird.
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I’m a Raleigh homer, but you’ve got to check out some of the Durham restaurant scene. All of the M sister restaurants, La Vaquita, Picnic, and Luna are unique or better than the Raleigh equivalents off the top of my head. Some really cool bars as well (and if you want a truly unique experience, do a krupnikas tasting at Brothers Vilgalys).
Friendly rivalry is fun, but don’t short yourself on the Triangle at large.
Aaaaand this has drifted wildly off-topic. Oops.
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Sorry guys - Didn’t intend to come across as some kind of Durham hater. I really don’t have anything against it. It’s probably more a function of my middle age-dad- family-work-etc. lifestyle than anything else. With kids, job, soccer, swimming, aging FIL living with us, and everything else going on, I don’t have a bunch of disposable time or income to be going out all the time anymore, as compared to when I was single and in my 20s.
When I (we) do go out, it just tends to be local in Raleigh. There are plenty of options here to explore, vs. driving 30+ minutes to Durham. That was all I am saying. If I was living in Durham, I would probably say the same about Raleigh.
Technically, my job is right across the Druham line in RTP, so I am there just about every weekday. If that counts for anything.
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I mean I’m the biggest Raleigh booster but I would say the city has dropped the ball on a lot of things. Lack of amenity centralization (they’re even moving the Red Hat amp out of downtown 
) and lack of taking leadership position of Wake County. Lack of a signature project in downtown is one of them. A ballpark or a main library or a new performance art center that is not only modern but architecturally a master-piece. Heck, I would still rather see the soccer stadium going downtown or very close instead of Downtown South. Now that it is delayed maybe that could still happen.
But at least if we do decide to do something about these deficiencies these projects will be scaled up to the Raleigh of the future and not the past.
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Raleigh hasn’t built one game changing amenity in its downtown in my 4+ decades here. Maybe when service catches up to what was built, Union Station could live up to its potential.
Raleigh has, however, built a lot of really good things that in collection are quilting a pretty damned good set of experiences.
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Yeah they’re all over the place that’s a key issue. If you can concentrate things into one spot you can create a lively urban vibe which we currently only have on some weekends.
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I walk all over downtown daily to get my 5+ miles in the bank. Increasingly I’m seeing sidewalk activity on weekdays. I saw it yesterday and I expect to see it this evening as well.
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Bringing it back to Meta 
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“We have nothing to share regarding any plans in the Research Triangle at this time,” Meta spokesperson Jamila Reeves told RALtoday in an email.
Probably means they’re looking at an RTP office given the reference.
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Why? I grew up in Raleigh and never went to Durham except to go to Bull’s games when I was in HS (Schlitz Malt Tall boys were a $1, and they did not card!!). I live in a town of 12: now, but I can go weeks with out seeing the south side of this little village, lol. There is nothing wrong with being a Homer, imho.
@John wasn’t the last game changing amenity built in downtown the state capitol, circa 1850? 
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As a kid, I never went to Durham except when my mom took me to the Life & Science Museum. Southpoint opening seems to be when my dad discovered Durham lol. Now that I can drive I enjoy trips to Durham. Though it’s usually only for special events or occasions even though it probably isn’t much further from me than downtown Raleigh. My mind doesn’t orient that direction I suppose.
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It is very much about how you visualize or imagine your community & space.
While my folks now live about Crabtree, I grew up in Fairmont, so when I come home and go out, the car just heads towards Cameron/Campus area, even though I am sure there are tons of great things in the greater Crabtree Cluster(f#%k) area.
I think is part of the trouble for DTR - many suburbanites just don’t think to go.
As @Kanatenah said, its not hate against Durham, its just that it doesn’t come to mind. Default is local and what you know or knew.
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