Moore Square

Not Moore Sq exactly, but went to benchwarmers this morn, dad went along for the ride. On Martin, just before Wilmington, dude is throwing outdoor seat chairs into the middle of the road. Not a good look for an early Sunday morning.

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Crazies gonna crazy. That’s why most cities nail down their outdoor furniture. (And don’t put their homeless services next to nice parks)

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Not cynical, just realistic. I support F to T in principle, and nothing against Lucky Tree or their new venture. But for the time being, F to T lacks a viable distribution model. If F to T means individual pickup trucks driving 200 miles to bring a half-load of produce direct from the “farm” to your “table”, that’s not economically-sound, sustainable, or environmentally-friendly. There are some smart people working on alternative distro networks that will allow F to T to succeed at scale. Until then, I have deep reservations.

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I don’t think the new farm to table restaurant in Moore Square will accept reservations.

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image

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I mean…I used to hand deliver fresh harvested produce directly to Fiction Kitchen, Garland (Cheetie Kumar), and Ashley Christensen. There are several locally owned distributors that are vertically integrated from investing in farms to delivering to grocery stores and restaurants. Farm to table isn’t a hoax. Check out Happy Dirt, The Produce Box, Farmer Foodshare…

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Not how we roll in Raleighwood…wait til RUSBUS station opens…& after all of the money invested there & all of the progress in the warehouse district gets sidelined by panhandlers & the loiterers with nothing else to do all day

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yeah, i’m sure the whole project and district will go downhill because of… loiterers?

what do you think is the #1 problem with the Moore Square area is?

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if you don’t like moore square, don’t go there. plenty of people on this forum appreciate it daily.

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As someone that lives near there, the main problem imo is that it is just too bland. Yeah, there are loiterers and homeless people there, but they’re not the reason people don’t come. Markets will pop up and the people will show out.

Moore Square, by itself, doesn’t have any kind of draw right now. Maybe a new farm-to-table/coffee shop changes that. Personally, I’d like to see us use that gigantic mulched area and plant as much as humanly possible. I’d also like to see a huge and significant dog park upgrade.

I’d also like more areas where kids can enjoy themselves. The single slide and the water feature in the summer is cool, but it feels so so so incomplete. That area should be packed, considering its directly neighboring Marbles.

Last year, during Christmas time, there were zero Christmas Decorations in Moore Square outside of a few events (which were promptly taken down). Likely, it’s because they have scheduled events. But, I really think the city can do a lot more to not make that place look so dark and uninviting during the winter months.

Probably not the schpeal you wanted or were expecting. I walk through Moore Square almost daily, and I can assure you that the loiterers are only a symptom of the problem. Not the problem itself.

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This is a great perspective. As someone who goes through often, but not as often as you, I feel the same way.

Moore Square’s current layout feels like it was built for a bigger city. I think it’ll pop more once more development surrounds it. Those developments also need street-level activation.

I truly think the city knows this and that right now, they are not getting their ROI. To fix that, they are trying to get development going nearby. At the same time, they have to navigate the current state of things and need to deliver affordable housing, which is an added challenge that a private developer doesn’t have to factor in.

Moore Square feels like a shopping center where the anchor tenant is empty. In this case, the City Market building. No, as an event space, that doesn’t count.

So I think it’s coming but you know, we’ve all heard that before. I’m positive about it though.

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Moore Square needs that large mixed use project on the block to its east to activate the immediate area with more residents.

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May I present Exhibit A (for this week)

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tell me you don’t think deeply about systemic issues without telling me you don’t think deeply about systemic issues

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My family and I hung out at Moore Square for a few hours after the Christmas parade. There were so many people out and about that it was IMO impossible, at that time, to feel uncomfortable.

I think that the best solution is (as @dtraleigh said) to just make it more active at all times of day and days of the week. The new development to the east is going to help. Converting City Market into a higher use than a mere event venue would also help. But the biggest thing is to just get more people living and working downtown every day.

That said, two things can be true at once:

  1. There are systemic issues at the heart of street violence and homelessness
  2. Regardless of the root cause, many people will tend to stay away from areas where violence regularly occurs.

Also, if you are sick, doctors will treat both the root cause and the symptoms. A crackdown on disorder and violence in public spaces like Moore Square is not exclusive of addressing systemic issues like persistent poverty.

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While it is certainly a problem in Moore Square, it is not the only area of DTR with such an issue. Nor will it be the last area of DTR with a homeless issue where poverty and violence collide. I see this getting worse, not better. I also see finger pointing between organizations with bandaids. There are areas of the country that have made strides but our situation hasn’t gotten “bad enough” yet for someone to scream loud enough for solutions to that truly make a dent in the problems at hand.

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6 posts were merged into an existing topic: GoRaleigh Bus Station