I was going to say “has she never been downtown” because as a newbie here, downtown has a much better neighborhood feel than most.
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Fair, but as someone who can’t afford to live in (or even near) downtown, I very much share her complaint. I know this is a downtown-centered forum, but let’s keep in mind that most Raleigh residents still don’t live there. And, in her case in particular, she’s paid to regularly go to PNC Arena, which is in the middle of suburban hell and doesn’t even have a direct bus connection to downtown.
I’d be fine with not being able to afford downtown if there were additional urbanized neighborhoods that I could live in, but the only other one is the equally-unaffordable Midtown/North Hills area. So instead, I’m an eighteen minute walk from a bus stop that’s a nearly forty-minute ride to downtown.
Raleigh needs more urban centers. Nearly every part of this city outside of downtown absolutely sucks to get around without a car (including Midtown). I think the TOD efforts will go a long way in helping this, but, right now, it’s miserable out here.
And yes, I’m still a little heated over that one guy talking sh*t about Northerners on Twitter, so I apologize for my grumpiness.
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I had to chime in on some of the replies. It’s pretty clear those that don’t go downtown. One guy literally says he avoids downtown but now why (I asked). So if he hasn’t been downtown in 10 years, guess what…
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Right. Downtown is good. More urban pockets is the answer. But also I think adding tons of corner stores at key intersections would be the biggest impact to promote walkability city-wide.
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Right. The problem isn’t that downtown isn’t good. The problem is that downtown is the only place that’s good.
Keep in mind, I get to hang out in downtown like once or twice a week, max. I try to take the bus there when I can, but that’s not always practical depending on time constraints and if we need to go somewhere else before or after, so it’s not uncommon for us to drive. Then the rest of my week is filled with riding my bike on the sidewalk along a five-lane stroad and walking my dogs through the same three apartment complexes.
Downtown Raleigh and its adjacent neighborhoods are, compared to many American cities, great places to live. The rest of Raleigh is the same suburban hellscape you see everywhere else in the U.S.
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Look, I get it. I grew up in north Raleigh when driving suburbia was de rigueur. I went to college at State and never looked back. Once I tasted a walkable lifestyle, I wasn’t going back to cul-de-sac land. Fortunately for me, downtown living wasn’t as en vogue when I started my adventure into walkable living, and it was “affordable” to obtain. Of course, I also lived in some shitty places with nailed-shut windows and no A/C during that time, but that was by my choice.
I feel for those who want to live downtown but can’t obtain it, even in the sort of affordable housing that I once lived in but no longer exists.
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I actually just looked up Greensboro on walkscore, and it’s even lower than Raleigh’s, not that Raleigh’s is any good either.
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Yep. Unfortunately, that’s where we’re at now. My wife and I are just now getting to a point where we should be able to afford a mortgage, but the market is so bonked here that I don’t know if that’s going to happen. It’s really come down to one of three possibilities: we get lucky, we buy in suburbia, or we leave. I’m sad to say that the third option is not out of the question.
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Not to sound like a debbie downer, I just don’t think the PNC Arena/surrounding area is ever gonna be what we would all hope and want it to be IMO. It is surrounded by government buildings, business parks, a high school, a vet school, and the highway. I know there’s been talk of using some the tailgating lots for some sort of development, but we’ll see.
If the state government ever opened up some of the lots used for tailgating across Trinity for development then maybe something could be put there? Hopefully whenever discussions begin for a new arena we are all looking at something more urban.
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Regrettably, affordability and walkability often do not go hand in hand…
More urban(e) centers around town would be a nice hedge in the right direction.
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You’d be surprised how expensive sububurbia is becoming too. Take it from someone who closed on a new build in the Apex/Holly Springs area last year. I think our same floor plan from our builder is now starting at 100k more than what it started at beginning of 2021 for us in other neighborhoods in the Apex/Holly Springs/Fuquay area.
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Oh I know it, I’ve been watching. All the more reason why this region needs to start building dense, walkable hubs in places other than just downtown. Sprawl is expensive for everybody.
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This is why developments like Wendell Falls are so attractive. Just ask @atl_transplant
While it’s not downtown, it’s also not completely car dependent or completely hostile to pedestrians.
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reduce car trips
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Yeah, I like Wendell Falls. My only real complaint with it is that it isn’t well-connected to, well, anything else, and it’s still limited in terms of shopping and entertainment. In contrast, downtown Cary (another walkable suburban hub) is connected to both Raleigh and RTP with bus service every thirty minutes, plus it sees ten Amtrak trains per day. It also boasts plenty of locally-owned businesses. But you wanna talk about pricing… yeesh.
So yes, agreed, Wendell Falls is absolutely a step in the right direction, and GoTriangle needs start working getting all-day transit service out there sooner rather than later to encourage that walkable emphasis. But we really don’t have many examples to cite beyond Wendell Falls, and even that neighborhood is still very car-oriented in a lot of respects.
It just feels like we’re trying to buy at the worst possible time. It’s (probably) too late for us to buy near downtown Raleigh, as prices ITB are skyrocketing at an even faster rate than the rest of the region. Meanwhile, several municipalities in Wake County are in the early stages of planning transit-oriented suburban hubs, but none of those hubs actually exist yet. So all we can really afford is car-centric neighborhoods, and we really have no interest in that.
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I’m having trouble with this one. It’s going to have to be a multi-reply I think. He’s literally saying his last experience was when Fayetteville Street was a ped mall and it now has “too much traffic”. 
My reply is so that others can see the silliness of his comment, not that I’m trying to change his mind.
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the parking situation is bad
it’s obviously made for cars, not people
Pick one or the other, buddy. Also, the parking situation is only bad if walking a measly two blocks to your destination is a problem for you. Raleigh has a ridiculous amount of parking.
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I tried…
See replies.
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We all know why DTR is what it is.
This whole debate brings up an interesting question I’ve asked myself recently;
What would it look like to build a new town?
No, like actually build a town incrementally with the long term goal of it growing into a city, like a seed.
Not like a Chatham Park, Wendell Falls, or North Hills…
Not designed to a finished state with restrictive zoning and large, undividable parcels.
What authority could do such a thing?
Could the town of Cary, for example, buy a 400 acre farm in Chatham Co within their ETJ, divide it into 1,000 1/3 acre parcels, plan a multimodal street grid, and begin auctioning off the parcels to individuals and businesses with built-in impact fees to pay for infrastructure as the town is built?
Could something like this actually create a new city in 50 years?
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