if i recall north ridge had a french restraunt their for 30 years maybe? jacques something. pretty good food. sutton square used to have tapas there and capri and tazas grill. i think a melting pot (fondue) was at the old holly hill SC.
Oh man, the new part of West Cary does kind of make my skin crawl.
That spot… there’s supposed to be a dense “mixed use” area next to the Green Level West/540 interchange. Duke is building a hospital there now for example. But I am not optimistic at all about the form this development will have, given it’s next to an interchange.
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In the past few years since I graduated from Millbrook, the Litchford/Atlantic and Spring Forest intersections has started getting much denser. It seems to also be much more middle and lower income housing (in my assumption). But hopefully something could get done with that shopping center with the DMV and the Snoopy’s. It seems like all the retail goes to Falls of Neuse or Capital.
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That was one of the things they adopted in the Downtown Apex Master Plan. I’m not sure how far along they are with implementing any of these ideas as this was adopted in 2019 and we know what happened in 2020 
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I think you’re thinking of St. Jacques restaurant. Still there but under new ownership. Not sure if it’s still as good.
Some of the developments in Cary west of 540 are ironically better-designed than the neighborhoods lining Cary Parkway or Maynard Rd. For example, the intersection of Green Level Church and Carpenter Fire Station has three grocery-store anchored shopping centers, all with off-road greenway connections to the outlying neighborhoods, including Amberly, which has it’s own small little commercial strip (has a juice bar and a Domino’s, of all things) and is mostly designed with alley-loaded homes, a few pocket parks, etc.
It’s not for everyone, to be sure. It’s meticulously-planned, definitely not “organic” in the way true urban neighborhoods are, and some of the distances between homes/commercial are far for all but the most able-bodied of people, but the path you took to the disc golf course is the worst of the worst out there.
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I agree with that route being an example of the worst of the worst, but there is more insanity out there. Check out this gem:
EDIT: I did not intend to start a Western Wake bash… It is what it is… I just hope other suburbs of Raleigh figure this out and create a more flexible zoning code for their ETJs that promote mixed use / incremental development. Unfortunately the growth we are experiencing will accelerate our trajectory into the status quo, because everyone in the industry just has their head down trying to get houses built asap. Honestly I’m really grateful that we have Falls lake to the North, Jordan Lake to the far west, and Swift Creek watershed to the South which create bookends for the sprawl. It will put a little more pressure on the industry to densify within existing developed frameworks.
Not sure if this was the intent of your screenshot or not, but those are clearly meant to connect to each other at some point in the future, likely based on capital planning budgets. It won’t be as disconnected, that’s for sure.
Unfortunately, Jordan Lake ain’t doing much to combat the westward sprawl of the region (gestures aggressively at Chatham Park).
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Yup. Anecdotally, I’ve got friends moving in from Austin and they’re building west of Jordan Lake. It’s clearly the next frontier.
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These protected water supply watersheds, along with Umstead Park, Duke Forest & the RDU land, are the lungs of the Triangle. They also will concentrate development and leave the natural areas, natural. Wakefield is sprawl, but planned as walkable(?) with lots of greenspace. Same with Briar Creek. Both within Raleigh’s city limits, both planned communities, but constrained by protected lands. RDU will continue to develop as public entity, so mostly conserved. These protected areas watersheds, parks, forests, etc are what makes our area unique. My friends, after moving from Indianapolis, asked, “where’s the city?”. In the forest.
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Pretty good video on the burbs issues with paying for themselves over time. Suburbia is Subsidized: Here's the Math [ST07] - YouTube
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im not sure on this. my folks used to walk to north hills from wingate dr…a two mile walk only through quiet neighborhood sidewalks. basically to go to k and w to eat and shop at north hills (how terrible, i know)…they kind of enjoyed it…the neighborhood was mature and quiet and pleasant to them. i guess wakefield has sidewalks and numerous dining options? not true soul food or excessively foreign perhaps(?) but nice for general weekday dining and a two mile walk?
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I hardly remember my folks walking beyond their cul-de-sac!
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Yep, that’s it. That’s the data that every city needs to be calculating and posting on the front page of their website. Public opinion needs to swing this way
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Thank you for sharing this. Great video with some excellent visual data!
I’d love to see this map for Raleigh. We’d see positive spikey zones from downtown through NC State to the west, North Hills, the dense apartment zone around Lake Lynn, and probably Crabtree Valley in particular, and some big ass negative zones like much of 70s suburbia north Raleigh & the favored quarter of ITB.
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I’d bet one of the highest ROI ratio locations in Wake Co. would be this strip mall:
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I emailed the video to council and asked they consider a similar study. They’re doing a lot of the right things (I think) to improve Raleigh’s scenario in such a study, but having data would help justify and perhaps a more aggressive approach.
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I would really be interest to see a study for the city that would then be something we could judge new plans against as well as a study on the water and sewage system as a whole. Because that goes out past the city to serve others I always wondered if serving Knightdale actually makes or loses money over the long run. Who pays for all that maintenance?
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Is that a county thing? Unincorporated Wake County?
I’d love to see how Wendell is shaping up in this context as well. Cary. Apex. Holly Springs. etc
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