The (New) City of Oaks
As we were getting ready to graduate from NC State, a classmate and close friend of mine (from out of state) pronounced “I will never come back to Raleigh.” Flash forward nearly three years later, and now it’s “I love Raleigh.”
A remarkable difference, to be sure. Raleigh — the “City of Oaks” — and the Research Triangle area in general seems to have begun a noticeable revival in the recent years. The change is most recognizable in downtown Raleigh, where there seems to be new bars, restaurants, and cafes popping up every few weeks. I’ve heard my friends in Raleigh talk about new places they are finding, and I initially thought it was a function of transitioning to off-campus life, but it’s much more than that. The changes are even surprising to those who have grown up in Raleigh. Over winter break, I was downtown bar crawling for the birthday, then again to see Avatar in IMAX 3D, and again to a cafe one afternoon with friends.
This is really exciting to me. It seems that many of the re-development efforts undertaken by the local governments in the past 5 to 10 years are finally bearing fruit. Even though the recent recession has hit some of the stalwart Research Triangle Park companies (i.e., Nortel and SonyEricsson), new entrants like Fidelity and Credit Suisse are coming in. And as a whole, the Triangle area wasn’t hit as badly as other parts of the country. Consistently Raleigh and the Triangle are ranked top in the best places to live, best places to start a business, best places to start a family.
If this keeps up, I see no reason why Raleigh and the Triangle can’t be elevated further into the national discussion as great/unique metropolitan areas. One example I give is Portland, Oregon — a city smaller than the other landmark cities of New York, LA, Chicago, Austin, etc — yet has a well known character of being very progressive, green and yuppie friendly, and with its own unique music scene.
Keep it up Raleigh, keep it up.