What does it mean to take Charlotte on? What are we not motivated to do? What metrics are you trying to optimize and exploit?
I really think the existence of and activity in this website and community should be enough to say the motivation is there, and the Triangle is simply trying to play a different game than Charlotte. There’s no one, objective, absolute way to be “better” as a bigger, more influential city. With different main industries (banking/pro sports vs tech/life science/college sports), I just don’t think it’s possible to make apples-to-apples comparisons between the two cities, so that competition doesn’t make sense to me in the first place.
I think the post I made in the business expansion thread makes a case that we should be treating Boston, San Diego, and Seattle as our competitors instead. After all, that’s also where we’re actually pulling residents and jobs away from.
But to get back on “topic”(?) and to Charlotte, @Kanatenah mentioned in another thread:
What are your criteria for a “better” city? Livability indices? (If so, which ones? The AARP’s can be biased against Raleigh since we don’t have as many older people here due to our recent growth) Venture capital investments? Size of schools (which isn’t a good metric for “goodness” of schools, like @atl_transplant said)? Or…?