Interesting questions to ponder. I wonder how much the experience of closer developments like Oakwood, Forest (nee Cameron) Park, and Fairmont can inform our thinking on the northern suburbs. Forest Park and Fairmont were both true suburbs in their development day, going from single family to being split up boarding houses or room rentals, and now back to expensive single family homes. Their life cycle was certainly informed by the proximity of the state college, which those north of beltline lack, so there are clear differences there. But the idea of desirable sfh development deteriorating and then rebounding at later date might illuminate the future rather than wholesale redevelopment. Of course, this thesis must be tempered by the reality of how many tear downs we are seeing across many of the post-1960s neighborhoods that are further out than the old inner city suburbs.
In Greystone/Stonehenge, we’re just beginning to see a few mid 1980s teardowns, a few subdivided SFH lots, and last few “undesirable” lots being built out. I am honestly shocked that the sprawling 1980s 2/3 story apartment complex between my townhouse and the shopping center hasn’t been torn down and supersized yet (but it is coming). It sits on 3 huge parcels.
Plus the giant shopping center along Creedmoor Road is begging for a refresh with higher density. My gut is telling me that we’ll see it all happen in the next 10-15 years.
There are four different teardown/rebuilds happening on my morning walk route in northern Oakwood / southern Mordecai - all of those little rinky-dink 60s tract houses on relatively big lots, so I’m pretty ok with it.
This will also be the year Durham passes 300k. Greensboro barely hangs on to 3rd for one more year though.
I would love to be around for the next 100 years as Raleigh, NC, and our metro area change. America (US) is such an anomaly with so much land/territory, wealth, and the ever changing landscape to meet the needs for how people live and work 
I think that what separates the development of the 60s, 70s, and 80s from development prior and since is that these decades really represent a sort of “peak car” in American society where it was really central to nearly everything. Much of the suburban development of that era leaned heavily toward larger lots that spread us out further and with many streets that didn’t even have sidewalks. Certainly some of this can be attributed to how relatively small Raleigh was back then and the abundance of land that was available, but there certainly didn’t seem to be much consideration to walking to nearly anything.
Raleigh’s early suburbs as you mentioned were more connected to their community, had much less emphasis on the car, had sidewalks, and the houses were generally on much smaller lots. More recent suburban developments have attempted to replicate the community, walkability, and density aspects of “suburbia” of a hundred years ago. Ironically, much of that development is happening in places like Apex, Holly Springs, Wendell, etc., and not as much in Raleigh. How legacy neighborhoods in north Raleigh morph, they are unlikely to look like either downtown neighborhoods or these new-urban developments. It’s an interesting design challenge to think about how change happens to places like north Raleigh beyond it just transforming into a place for tear-downs and multi-million dollar homes. There’s going to have to be some creative thinking around the largely strip center development and their edges that litter our main arteries among this legacy development.
I would prefer it if they were replacing a single house with anything more dense than another single house.
just curious on this issue somewhat…i know there are discussions on parking allowances in denser areas. with the new density in that area, will that add that many more vehicles into the citys core…especially an established neighborhood with smaller streets? i guess the streets have the capacity but does that congeal somewhat with the citys development vision? less vehicular trafic, better walkability?
There’s a couple of those on Brookside. If I had my way, Glascock would have similar zoning - it’s another busy thoroughfare through there.
North Raleigh (besides some spots along Capital and around North Hills which built apartments) is the biggest stretch of the Triangle which saw pretty negligible population growth over the 2010s:
In fact, seven tracts in north Raleigh and four in Cary saw population decline over the 2010s! (Ten ITB did as well, but I’d say four of those were due to 2020’s temporary hit in resident students.)
It’s pretty clearly following the pattern Issi Romem described as “Pockets Of Dense Construction In A Dormant Suburban Interior”, or that’s described in Toronto as “the yellowbelt” (a play on Ontario’s Greenbelt).
HOA rules might prevent small-scale densification of much of north Raleigh, though. North Hills had to get HOA rules overturned in order to build the “Park District” east of Six Forks.
I still think that the no-growth or decline of many of these suburban areas is due to more households becoming an empty nest with the parent/parents remaining in the family home. Those homes will eventually turn over to the next generation of owners, albeit with smaller household sizes based on the trend of having fewer children.
Correct, it’s mostly within households and due to Boomers aging into empty nests. Hence:
Our population will never need so many large suburban ramblers. Rebuilding those as townhouses or flats would better fit the needs of both today’s seniors and today’s young families.
Neighborhoods’ physical fabrics should be able to adapt to changes in their social fabric, but SFZ has outlawed that.
Yet what’s crazy is that in Raleigh a lot of the aging stock of 1500-2500 sf houses are often being torn down and replaced with houses that are over 4000 or 5000 sf., and with price tags that are in the millions.
As a child of the North Raleigh Six Forks corridor, I can say the empty-nest effect is very much happening along this stretch. It feels like this corridor was “booming” in the 90s-00s, but slowed to its current state. I also wonder about the developable land along this corridor. Honestly, North Hills and Strickland sort of bookend the major developments. You are starting to see some turnover in smaller houses (thinking of the ones along Millbrook), and also some major teardowns of commercial space (like Quail Corners and across the street). It’ll be interesting to see what happens to the neighborhoods adjacent to North Hills in the next decade.
What’s happening in Lakemont, where there was a particularly strong collection of modestly sized single family homes, is particularly shocking. That stock of housing is probably near the end of its 2nd generation of homeowners, and now it’s seeing tear downs. The same is true for the stretch down and around Shelley Rd. I don’t even recognize it anymore!
When my mom passes, her 2200 SF single family home is almost assuredly going to be a teardown due to it being on the smaller size of a home in North Ridge.
As those suburban N Raleigh lots are getting even more valuable over time, I don’t see a lot changing. However, there are a lot of aging apartment complexes tucked away in spots all over North Raleigh. I could see those redeveloped from their current three-story + surface parking configurations to 5-over-1s.
Yeah, that’s what I think too. Plus, a lot of those apartments are only 2 stories! There’s a lot of opportunity out there for apartment redevelopment. The only negative is that many of these older complexes are naturally occurring affordable housing. Anything that takes their places is probably going to cost renters at lest 50% more per unit.
I live right next to Lakemont in Eastgate. Every week it seems there is a new tearn down. One older couple recently sold their 60‘s ranch house to a builder for $1,000,000. 
It’s a big lot and there is a monster McMansion going up now. I’m sure it will be in the $3M plus range.
What I wonder is who is buying all these houses. I can’t even fathom what a mortgage payment is on that. A 20% down payment on that is way more than what we bought our house for. What do these people do for a living? Where did I go wrong in my career path?
ITB is nice and new and just around and outside 540 is nice and new. A large portion of the ring between 440 and 540 is dated and gross and is where the lions share of redevelopment is going to occur over the next 20 years.
I’ve lived off Shelley for 19 years and it was just starting to change around the time we bought in 2006. It’s on steroids now and creeping up on me on Thayer.