Like nearly all American cities, Austin is mostly suburbs. Like Charlotte, they have hundreds of square miles of “not downtown” within their city limits alone.
1 Like
I mean if we’re being honest, many of our suburbs constantly rank in the top of “best places to live”. Everyone likes different things.
9 Likes
If we’re being honest… suburbs are pretty much the same almost anywhere in the US. Once you get out of the core cities, it all looks the same no matter where you are. Boston, Austin, Raleigh, KC, Chicago, Seattle, etc.
Neighborhood after neighborhood, connected by strouds with strip malls, fast food joints, crapplebee’s, gas stations you name it.
5 Likes
I respectfully disagree. I study this stuff for a living. Cary, Apex etc don’t even compare to most places.
And even so, if that’s what the majority of people like and choose then that’s them. Not saying it’s my speed but people like what they like.
8 Likes
To that point, I just drove here from Boone today, and the sprawl outside of the triad is much less attractive than the sprawl of the triangle (on avg)
13 Likes
It’s not necessarily just the sprawl to me. Look at Downtown Cary, the parks and trails systems, the connectivity of the actual neighborhoods, the way the lifestyle centers are. There’s reasons these places are ranked higher than most others in America. Again, I’m not saying it’s better, or even what I like.
I, like most in here prefer the city. And the only way to make Raleigh thrive is to densify our core and add density strategically in the suburbs.
But the most walkability and pleasant living experience I ever had was when I was in an apartment in Morrisville. I had 5 grocery stores and multiple parks, greenways and restaurants in a 1/2 mile walking radius. All connected by paths too.
14 Likes
Not explicitly about Raleigh, but very relevant to the things we talk about all the time here:
But it’s the places where those workers settled that are experiencing the growing pains of a new cohort of migrants. Former coastal residents who left for cheaper pastures still want the same kinds of major-metro amenities to which they’ve become accustomed — and the Sun Belt destinations they’ve flocked to don’t have enough of them. To put it another way, we need more Whole Foods stores — and other types of cosmopolitan consumption outlets — in the Sun Belt.
4 Likes
I was in Austin last week and it is a great place to visit, but was a sigh of relief when I got back home to Raleigh. Raleigh has a population of just over 71% of Austin’s, but it feels much less congested here and much easier to get around. It makes sense in that there is a large portion located in Raleigh’s suburban areas. Austin has more tourism and therefore attractions, but the traffic and congestion that makes it less attractive (to me).
9 Likes
It’s at least 10° hotter in the summer & though pretty for Texas, scenery is blighted by signs. Low or no taxes (thanks big oil!) is the draw there.
1 Like
Except property taxes 
2 Likes
Those amenities and “lifestyle” options they mention have improved a whole lot here since I moved here from the BA in 2005. Primarily the food scene in terms of variety.
3 Likes
“So California, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Maryland and Washington, D.C., have 206 Whole Food stores, compared with 115 in Arizona, Texas, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee.”
As if the people are moving to the parts of the latter group that don’t have Whole foods.
This is just a story in search of a cheap digestible narrative.
Outside of the greater NYC area, NY state has exactly 2 Whole Foods, while NC has Whole Foods in the Triangle, Triad, Asheville, Charlotte, and Wlimington.
Georgia’s more like NYC with nearly all of the Whole Foods being in the greater Atlanta area, but Florida has them all over the state & Texas has aplenty in their Texas Triangle of DFW/Austin&SA/Houston. Tennessee even has them in their 4 largest metro areas. Arizona has them greater Phoenix, Tucson, and Flagstaff. I also have to wonder if they are counting all of the NOVA stores as DC and not the Southern State of Virginia.
This Whole Foods store count metric is really just reflecting over-weighted counts in CA where they have 96 locations. Unless all these coastal elites are setting in bumfuck somewhere in the aforementioned Sunbelt states, they likely have access to Whole Foods. Then again, if they relocate to bumfuck anywhere in their own coastal elite states, they aren’t going to find Whole Foods there either.
2 Likes
I came across this in The Economist, but I’ve seen it reported on in other publications as well. Just goes to show you the kind of cutting-edge science being done right here in Raleigh. Really gives new meaning to the lyric, “And if I die in Raleigh, at least I will die free.”
Scientific papers are normally models of discreet understatement. They are also (or are at least supposed to be) loaded with the information needed for others to replicate their findings.
Not this one. “Dual use of artificial-intelligence-powered drug discovery”, just published in Nature Machine Intelligence, has clearly freaked its authors out. That comes over both in the tone of the text and the deliberate withholding of crucial information. For what Fabio Urbina and Sean Ekins of Collaborations Pharmaceuticals, in Raleigh, North Carolina, [which uses computers to help its customers identify molecules that look like potential drugs] and their colleagues are reporting is a virtual machine that can be used to design new and nastier chemical weapons.
8 Likes
For those paywalled, the original paper is fairly readable. It’s a really interesting look at unexpected dangers of AI.
3 Likes
Also, before anyone starts flipping out, a helpful tip from someone who’s written on machine learning: remember that the “ML” or “AI” we have today are not hyper-intelligent Terminators. Today’s “AI” cannot apply learned ideas about one thing into other contexts, which is an important part of higher-order thinking.
99% of the time, you can replace the words “artificial intelligence” in an article with “human-written code that’s practiced in a very specific task” and you won’t be lose or misrepresent anything.
6 Likes
Yeah, this is right. I actually work in AI and there’s some amazing stuff happening in the field, but nothing approaching awareness or intelligence yet. The issue here is that because it’s just a piece of code, anyone who gains access to the code can misuse it in that way, which is much easier than learning the science behind drug development.
6 Likes
I agree, and I think that’s why user-friendly dual use is so terrifying. Since the world of drug development (and tbh, modern technologies at large) is already so complex and hyper-specialized, it’s impractical or impossible for anyone to have a full, deep understanding of every single component -let alone properly overseeing any small changes and preventing it from causing a systemwide shock. I’m glad this company wrote this piece, though, so that we have the means to talk about it like this.
(I could talk about possible indirect problems of their proposal, like sociocultural biases towards the global north in instituting IRBs, the faults of peer review systems, financial incentives from journals and conference organizers impeding new work while using accountability as an empty excuse etc., too …but I won’t bore everyone else lol)
2 Likes
Comparing whole food store counts to desirable relocation locations is about as ridiculous as counting Gucci Stores.
People move for all different kinds of reasons. Mostly jobs and overall quality of live vs cost of living. Corporate chain stores will follow if that corporation feels like there enough customers in the area to support a store.
While we have settled down in the past 10 years in Raleigh, I did used to move all up and down the east coast for years, and the number of Whole Foods, Gucci, or any other corporate conglomerate store in the area had zero to do with the decision.
2 Likes
I think the vast majority of us moved here for 3 reasons: job availability, weather, and cost of living. 5+ years ago this region was like the perfect Goldilocks scenario for all three of those main criteria.
Fast-Forward to post-pandemic and we are starting to lose the cost of living enticement. The job opportunities situation continues to grow better and better. And of course no change to the weather.
Off-topic, but I was trying to think of a current post-pandemic Goldilocks metro where a centrally located and walkable home location is still within reach for a mid 20s to early 30s person with the intention of settling down with a family. This of course is assuming no home equity from the previous location.
1 Like
I moved here for the weather, biotech, and affordability compared to downtown Boston. The weather is too hot and too cold but still way better than the northeast. Biotech is booming. And it’s still way more affordable than downtown Boston. Plus I own a house that has doubled in value in less than a decade. I’m still quite happy.
2 Likes