Fenton is Nirvana? Fascinating take.
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I like the layout. I like the current stores and restaurants. I like the cleanliness, safety and ease of parking. I sense a condescending tone in your comment. You could have just read it, but you took the time to respond, interesting.
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Since I know there’s a bunch of bike people on this board, on Saturday I went hiking at Medoc Mountain State Park about 1.25 hours NE of here and was really impressed with the mountain bike trails and infrastructure they’ve set up on the northern half of the park. Looked like it’d be a lot of fun if that’s your thing.
Great for me too as a hiker, since the trails barely intersect!
Grabbed lunch at the historic town of Halifax afterwards - really cute (postage-stamp sized) town, good sandwich shop and a couple nice stores and other restaurants, and the historic district was a fascinating afternoon.
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Maybe he thought it smelled like Teen Spirit? 
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Smells nice there… Better than the urine stench of Moore Square for sure .
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I would make my usual jackass response and say just drive to them if you’re an hour walk away. But Greenville, SC has a lot of small-city-turning-bigger-city stuff going on that we should be looking at for ideas. They have several brand new places basically built along the greenway, and everyone walks or bikes to them from downtown or their nearby neighborhood homes. It works really well, and is cool to see. Definitely on board with trying to get that mix of urbanization with some of our greenways. It also helps with that deserted, isolated feeling you tend to get on some of our greenways as they get closer to actual stuff.
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Greenville has their shit together. A proper streetscape is what downtown Raleigh needs. Aesthetics are essential to drawing people who can and will spend money. Take a trip to Columbus Ohio that city also has done some great streetscape work.
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Interesting city comparison to Raleigh. Ottawa has/had a building height limit of around 100 meters (328 feet) l so it has a uniform, square box skyline until a 45-story tower recently added to the skyline in Little Italy–outside of downtown which has less height restrictions.
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New York City is getting its first light rail line: https://new.mta.info/project/interborough-express
Pros: connects the outer boroughs, which is huge for a lot of underserved communities and lightens the load on the big transfer hubs in Manhattan.
Cons: Light rail and not a “real” subway expansion? Ehhhhh
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After a quick read, it seems Greenville began reinvesting in it’s downtown in 1968 with an urban masterplan, while Raleigh and much of the nation were drinking the kool aid on tract housing in new, single use cul de sac developments and “economic development” buffoonery. In 1979(!!!) Greenville reduced their main street from 4 lanes to 2 to create a pedestrian friendly environment. Raleigh can’t claim much of the same for downtown until very recently.
You say Greenville has their shit together…
I say Greenville implemented the ideas we talk about all day long on this site 40 years ago.
As @orulz mentioned, these responses are on the record to point out that quality urbanism works when it’s actually implemented without being neutered by the nimby and car-mob.
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If any city resembles Raleigh it’s Omaha. Very big 90s Raleigh vibe with the two buildings, surrounded by 200 foot boxes.
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In the late 60s Raleigh was fighting plans for its own downtown revitalization that would make it less like Greenville and more like a car oriented garden city government or worse, like Albany, NY. Raleighites in Oakwood were in the process of stopping a freeway from plowing through the east side of downtown.
So, in effect, Raleigh citizens were saving the city that we still have today.
I’ll pull out my glass half full emoji for this one. 
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Having spent more time in Omaha than anyone really ever needs to (it’s perfectly fine), I love the First National Bank tower. Properly monumental skyline peak.
BUT it’s not the tallest for long - Mutual of Omaha is building a new 677’ headquarters skyscraper.
Before anyone says “omg even little old Omaha gets nice things but not Raleigh,” they do have five Fortune 500 companies headquartered there, so if anything you’d think they’d have more towers.
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Wow it’s like the Devon building but with a more appropriate height for the surroundings.
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That’s a lot of office space for a post-pandemic building. Their office market must be booming but I wonder how many of their employees are working in-person verses virtually.
Edit: 15 floors of parking is wild 
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Greenville still very car oriented. Their downtown is both attractive and car friendly with nice angled parking throughout. Raleigh has never really cared about aesthetics downtown. I think an effort was made when Fayetteville street was redone, but they went with trendy and not timeless. Then they stopped. Walk one block in Raleigh and it’s nice then the next 3 are not maintained. Raleigh has some nice pockets downtown, but I would never call it a beautiful or charming place.
Omaha seems like a normal city. Probably lots of companies and folks are back at the office.
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A major streetscaping effort downtown would do so much for the city. There are even places in DTR where the sidewalk just… ends. It’s insane.
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Maybe one day Raleigh will land a couple Fortune 500 relocations.
Talk to any commercial broker & they will say “Raleigh is 1-2 HQ relocations away from exploding development-wise”
Of course they have been saying this for years….& still no major HQ relocations….
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