This was the closest thread I found for this and I wanted to know people’s opinion.
I was surprised this was unanimously approved by the planning commission. In my opinion, approving projects like this contributes to sprawl. The only public transit out here would require a half mile walk along a highway.
It does encourage sprawl but my guess is that it meets current zoning and will be approved…….unfortunately.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not ideal, but given that it’s very close to the 540/401 intersection, at least there’s some density vs just SFHs? That lot’s going to have something on it, the location is too convenient.
I just ran across this video on VERY DIFFERENT ways that some European countries build suburbs. Building something 10% this big would be crazy different than what Raleigh does. Alternatives to Sprawl: Case Studies in Building Better 'Burbs - YouTube
Something I really liked about the video was the examples they kept showing of how much land a Median US development would have taken vs what these used.
Where do people think one of the city suburbs could be built in this area? The place that comes to mind for me is the commuter rail stop just southeast of Garner. Easiest place to get right next to transit without many homes there. I guess the next place that comes to mind is DTS. How will the planned density for DTS compare to one of these?
Triangle town center.
I will try to spin this into a positive light, I promise. But first… .
West Cary/Apex / Morrisville and all of the beautiful former farmland and woods of the greater green level area is the most atrocious suburb I’ve ever seen. You can drive for 20 minutes through this wasteland and see nothing more than Wash rinse repeat civil engineer playbook medium density residential with Cary’s signature extra spacious streetscape, and not see a single small business, convenience store, meaningful traffic calming measure, low impact development design, or really any venue of culture or community…
My positive light is that I hope this residential wasteland shows people what not to build on the other sides of town. Unfortunately it’s too late for Eastern Chatham county…
Apex does at least have a cute downtown and some lovely parks, but otherwise totally agree. Bland bland bland, and completely car dependent.
That why we need to be urban and let the suburbs do there own thing. Raleigh needs to centre itself.
Most of north Raleigh is much the same.
We gotta stop doing that… make North Raleigh hip too.
Most of Raleigh is suburban itself. In a way, it’s its own suburb. The city’s plan to create more urbanized nodes throughout the city is very important to its future solvency.
I suppose the difference with North Raleigh is that it was developed much more incrementally. There are layers of uses, values, and densities in North Raleigh, whereas Western Wake and East Chatham were developed very rapidly in the last 20 years. I think North Raleigh has about a thousand times more nuance in the developmental fabric.
Yeah I see what you are saying. Cary does have that polished, no blade of grass out of place feel to it.
Very true. IMO, western Cary (beyond David Drive) is soulless and without a sense of place at all. It’s among my least favorite places to be, though others seem to love it. 
The impetus for my post was a trip today to Diavolo disc golf course, one of the highest rated courses in the state. It’s a beautiful amenity that Cary absolutely knocked out of the park. To get there from Raleigh, I took 64 to Apex and weaved through Green Level. This 11 minute stretch is soul crushing…
And that’s why we need to be urban if I were to compare to you know who Austin their less urban. Now if we merge metropolitan which is set to happen next year we may have to be a lot more Urban.
What?………………………………………
Can you please rewrite this reply? We are not sure what you are trying to say. Thanks.
I’m saying we need to be a lot less surburban and less urban if you look at other cities like Austin. You’ll see the surburbaness is gone. Now if we are remerging Raleigh-Cary MSAs with Durham-Chapel Hills MSAs again. We need to be even more urban because well even have more chances of de associating ourselves with the surburbs. That’s we’ll to be able to really center ourselves as an urban area and just promote “Raleigh”. The only thing we’ll need the suburbs is regional stuff like transportation, airports, among other things.
