I guess those folks are right, Raleigh is > Charlotte. To be fair, the report compared Charlotte to Raleigh/Durham. so, I guess it’s now Raleigh/Durham > Charlotte.

Worth repeating — Raleigh > Charlotte.

AGAIN!

Is there any reason left to live in the Queen city?

Wrong. Raleigh >>> Charlotte

Sometimes I get scared with all the good news. Hopefully, not everyone in this country reads about Raleigh, or the unemployment rate will jump to 50% :LOL: Well, not so funny, but you get the picture. The best thing we can do is build on our reputation and recruit a few major corporations to our area. Our downtown can use a few major tenants so we can get a few envisioned projects going

Need to work on “cool vibe” aspect which I think the Triangle has some of. Still, very corporate. Aim should be more like Austin than like Charlotte. Or maybe a more northern Nashville (with the music scene). But hard to beat Nashville’s music scene.

SS, I was really impressed to hear that Austin has a full-time city staffer dedicated to the music scene. His job is not just promotion, but also coordinating city policy with the needs of the venues (loading zones, police coverage, etc). They also actually have a Music Commission that falls under the Arts. It seems to not just be happening on its own, but rather, it is an initiative from City Hall. While we don’t see discouragement of all things non-white collar, I don’t think we quite get true leadership on these aspects from the current regime in City Hall.

Things like the Barrel Monster are EXACTLY what the city needs to elevate its cool factor. Frankly, I am glad the police have charged the guy with a misdemeanor. I think it makes it more cool. If it were completely manufactured, above board and approved by the City, it wouldn’t be edgy and cool. Not that I am for breaking the law but I am for urban art expression and putting Raleigh on the map for something other than for “families”. Singles, childless couples, artists, gays, minorities and young people, etc… need to start exerting their presence so that Raleigh can show the rest of the country that this is not just some sort of bedroom community. Even people who live in the area have no idea of the edgy and cool things happening right under their noses.
Regarding Austin, they have a slogan that reads “Keep Austin Weird”. It’s the slogan of the Austin Independent Business Alliance.

That is nice for Nashville and Austin, which is a really great town, but Raleigh needs to have its own thing. There are great little places here and there for nightlife, but they aren’t much connected. It would be awesome if the warehouse district had a bunch of little clubs and dives or restaurants, and if an area of it were sectioned off like they did in Durham to their warehouse district next to the ballpark. They have a river running through the middle of it! The WH district could connect better downtown bars, glenwood south and hillsborough street, while at the same time giving a patron of Boylan Bridge Brew Pub, Flying Saucer or the Pit somewhere to wander to afterwards.

Hey David,
Actually, Raleigh does have lots of great little places in its DT districts. I am always finding little places tucked away in the Warehouse District. To me, that’s what makes them cool. If you don’t know that they are there, you’d probably walk by without noticing anything. Mosquito is a great example of this. At its front door, you wouldn’t even know that a bar was there. From the back you see their covered porch area and you wonder what it is.
I agree that the next step is to fill in the places between the places so that the transition from one to the next is obvious. Frankly, all these districts are really close to each other. I live at the North end of Glenwood South and walk to the Warehouse District all the time. And, even if I didn’t want to walk, I can ride the R-line for free. It comes within a block of my condo.
In several places on the web, there has been discussion about a river walk by opening up a piped up creek. However, that creek won’t connect the districts to each other because it has to follow the contour of the land (which would keep it closer to Peace St. in Glenwood South. I think the connection from Glenwood South to the Warehouse District is going to have to be a significant landscape architecture solution coupled with some targetted development along a 2 block stretch of Hillsborough St. between Glenwood and Harrington Streets.