I think that it’s more than fair to say that Durham has some of the most interesting buildings (the old warehouses in particular) and features like the ballpark, but I disagree that those things alone make it the best downtown. Durham faces its own challenges, and most of them (IMO) are related to transportation infrastructure. It has a freeway that hugs its core and separates the neighborhoods to the south from being connected. Its railroad tracks are more disruptive to the center of the city, and its city street network is confusing and disjointed.
I do agree that it’s a shame that Raleigh destroyed a lot of its historic buildings in the past century, but I think that Raleigh’s downtown still has way more potential than Durham’s.
FWIW, I haven’t been to Asheville in years so I can’t really comment on it, but I really do like Wilmington’s with their historic waterfront downtown.
Nice candid capture, and also love the Hami sticker.
The historical stock + the hilly terrain does a lot for Durham.
Durham and Orange County have a range of big hills running through and it does add something. Occoneechee Mountain, Cox Mountain, Couch Mountain (in Duke Forest), and Red Mountain (by Rougemont) all are visible in this vid. Reminds me of Nashville.
Btw Raleigh makes an appearance at 5:05 in this vid. I think Raleigh feels way better to walk around than Charlotte still. It has more character, better park coverage, and far less highway intrusion.
That is all valid but I think contributes to the gritty feel of Durham. All cities have challenges from past infrastructure decisions. I think it’s cool to have intersections with unusual angles, because buildings typically adhere to the road network design, and it’s neat to see something other than a basic box. Relatively speaking the tracks are about as unobtrusive as they can possibly be, with no crossing closures that I am aware of in recent history, and the century-old bridges that are low and narrow look cool.
Lol those are actually friends of mine. We had a group and I tried to crop out most of them. Oh well.
Durham lost its edge a long time ago. A lot of the new buildings have this try-hard wannabe hipster vibe that I find extremely annoying. Like they paid a graffiti artist to tag up their lobby or left some pipes exposed just for the street cred. Gotta think the actual cool kids are not so easily duped.
Durham is currently in the sweet spot of having some seriously artistic neighborhoods and the fancy techbro apartments in the core that pay for nice city services. People idolize pure grit too much - Youngstown, Ohio isn’t exactly leading the modern art world.
We’ll see if Durham can keep the balance up.
Cary really building up a competent downtown area. Though judging by the demographics at the Pimento Cheese Festival it helps to have a high median wealth population.
We can totally have a nice park like this one if we had a decent city government instead of one that likes to delay and make worse everything it touches.
OKC approved what will be the country’s tallest building. 1900 feet. If they can figure out fire control, you would think Raleigh could as well.
This may prove to be the stupidest move ever made by an insecure city since North Korea’s Ryugyong Hotel in the middle of Pyonyang.
It’s oil money having some fun. The Kingdom Tower in Jeddah is probably a closer comparison.
I’m assuming that rendering is capturing the moment it is about to be destroyed by the aliens from Independence Day.
Or maybe it’s just about to be struck by lightning. Definitely would be a fun ride during a tornado…
It looks absurd, but I really hope this gets built. It’s not like I live there. From where I’m sitting, it’s gonna be hilarious.
Think how much more impressive their skyline would look if this were split up into three 50-story towers instead (the height of their current tallest that already sticks out).
Just wait until we see the amount of parking deck that is going to be built to support all of the cars calculated to be parked at this tower.
approved is key word here. This joke of a concept is never getting built. WHO in their right mind is funding that? In OKLAHOMA CITY? lmaoooooo
Oil, my man. Its Oklahoma.
I feel like OKC is getting more stick than it deserves here, its a fun mid sized city that likes to dream big.
I did read they’d secured the funding, so it sounds like the building is a go.