I travel extensively in the southeast and to all major cities. Charlotte and Raleigh were BOTH much smaller than Nashville, Richmond and even Birmingham at one time. People in Richmond can’t believe how Charlotte has blown past them but the real big story is Raleigh. Raleigh as pointed out above went from a fraction of the size of Richmond to today the Raleigh Cary metro not including Durham metro is bigger than the entire Richmond MSA. Raleigh had zero interstate highways just a few decades ago. The growth has been unbelievable. Richmond has a grid and higher density because it was an older city and sometimes people in Charlotte or Raleigh would say “wish we had old neighborhoods like that”. Well we did not need them 100 years because we were both smaller cities.
In terms of livable of capital cities I would choose Raleigh over Nashville 7 days a week and twice on Sunday! The parks, the museums, the trees, the greenways and the growth in Nashville where I visit once a year is so unplanned and chaotic it is not pretty! It is much easier to get around Raleigh. Yes they have built a lot of high rises but we have too in Charlotte but our city is more orderly. And even more so in Raleigh. It is like the wild wild west of development out there in Nashvegas. They only recently started in the last few years tree ordinances (and believe me it shows) and their sidewalk situation is like Charlotte’s once was 40 plus years ago.
Raleigh is rising nationally and I hope when or if NC gets a MLB team it is in Raleigh to help your rise in national prominence. I love the fact NC has 2 booming large metros and several others one growing fast too.
Hopefully someday this view is completely blocked by huge development (aka TOWERS) on that giant parking lot/parking deck.
Tbh I’d take everything here minus the stupid soccer stadium. All those buildings would be amazing!
I thought about that stadium proposal a lot last night as I gazed and admired the parking garages.
any particular reason you wouldn’t take the stupid soccer stadium? cuz i sure would
Because it’d be a giant money pit. We don’t have nor will ever get a Professional MLS team.
I’d take a giant money pit. Sounds fun.
For the first time in years, I toured the Governor’s Mansion today. Here’s a selection of photos that I took.
Part 2 of my downtown tour today is the Capitol. It wasn’t as decorated as the Mansion, but I still enjoyed it because it was the first time in years that I had toured.
They should put a cocktail bar in here. I’d go…
One of the most beautiful buildings for decades to come? Is that what they said?
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. For instance, @GucciLittlePenguin finds me beautiful.
It was a darn impressive how fast this went up. Saving 5 months is huge to my layman’s ear. Great looking building in my opinion.
Unfortunately, with the level of architectural creativity we tend to get in Raleigh… they’re not saying anything crazy lol. Maybe the new City Hall tower will look fine, if not a bit similar. Other than that, what beautiful marvels of architecture and engineering do we have to look forward to, currently? I’ll wait… 
Um did you forget about the upcoming project of shipping containers being used as cheap bars at the end of GloSo?
My hope is that both The Creamery tower and the municipal building will be better looking.
who came up with this portmanteau? can we not?