Downtown Revitalization: Raleigh, Seven Years Later

[I-10east]

have you followed what's going on in Brazil lately?  Their economy is booming and Rio is hosting the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympics in 2016.  Sounds like a pretty important world city to me.

I'm aware of the Olympics there. Although I have a strong hunch that the Rio isn't exactly proud of it's favelas; You sure as hell won't see them showcased on NBC like the Christ the Redeemer statue or something. I never said that Rio wasn't an important city, as is Raleigh to the world economy apparently....

[krazeeboi]

ROME BEIJING RALEIGH LOS ANGELES MADRID TORONTO HONG KONG....

What is your point in repeating this, particularly when no one said Raleigh was in the league of these cities? You sound like a petulant 5 year old.

[krazeeboi]

PARIS TOKYO SHANGHAI NEW YORK RALEIGH SYDNEY MOSCOW....

This is a strawman.

For me to be a 'strawman' I have to misrepresent what you spoke on, but I was being sarcastic; If you're gonna use a dumb cliche, atleast use it in it's proper context.

It was an appropriate cliche, properly used via the implication you were making.

Raleigh's a cute lil' growing city, but I'm not buying this overhyping of that city. None of yall NEVER talked about Raleigh until now.

We're talking about Raleigh now because it's the subject of this article, duh. I'm not very active in these forums but when I do participate, it's mainly in the "learning from" part when discussing other cities.

You can call Raleigh "overhyped," but you can't deny the population and economic growth and development that's occurring there that's outstripping what's happening in Jax. What's your answer for Raleigh's GDP growth in the past four years? It's virtually caught up to Jax's and is about ready to surpass it. Raleigh is actively making strides to enter the next tier of cities while Jacksonville can't even get its act together enough to build a real convention center.

Surrounding points of interest outside of a city doesn't make a city; That's just like saying Ft Lauderdale is some first rate city, just because it's by Miami. I don't even see Raliegh listed on the map on national weather forecasts. Sorry Raleigh, we don't believe you, you need more people.

Raleigh is the largest city in the Triangle and functions as an interdependent part of a whole, which is true of many other cities. Your Ft. Lauderdale/Miami analogy fails because Raleigh would be Miami and Durham would be Ft. Lauderdale. And plenty of national weather forecast maps show Raleigh, but having to resort to such a silly measure is very telling on your part.

[I-10east]

^^^Hooray!!! The Research Triangle Park, a high tech suburban uber-office complex is the center of focus for Raleigh. I'm sure that people outside of that field of research work are ALL-SO intrigued on what goes on in a hard to access security zone (for people who don't have any business there). I can't wait to test my luck and try to visit it; Hopefully I won't get arrested. This place just OOZES tourism interest....

Despite Raleigh's recent growth, it's still one of the lesser known capitals, and since the 50's the 'big tourism draw' RTP haven't done much to change that. I can just go on and on with SO many areas that Raleigh will never be able to compete with Jax, hell just by geography alone. Aquatic recreation, fishing, military, tourism, intermodal railroad, mortgage industry and on and on and on. You all are freaking kidding yourselves if you think Raleigh is more well known than Jax, no matter how many pages of pics, or random Jax slighting info that yall pull up. A city that hosted a Super Bowl is lesser known than the ubertropolis melting pot Raleigh, LOL 

[tufsu1]

Despite Raleigh's recent growth, it's still one of the lesser known capitals

do you have data to support this?

[I-10east]

^^^I'm so over this Raleigh thread. I think that Andy Griffith occasionally mentioned that city on the show, I'll give it that much. 

[thelakelander]

Speaking of North Carolina cities, I'm currently boarding a plane in Charlotte. Nice airport.

[tufsu1]

Speaking of North Carolina cities, I'm currently boarding a plane in Charlotte. Nice airport.

If yiu do not go outside.....the airport is just a pass through....when you step outside, you see it is all but dead

[thelakelander]

Didn't go outside. I just had to switch concourses. Lots of restaurants and shops in concourses D & C.

[tufsu1]

^ I agree, it is pretty awesome inside....and the aromas from all of the food establishments in the main atrium (between B & C) is intoxicating

[krazeeboi]

^^^Hooray!!! The Research Triangle Park, a high tech suburban uber-office complex is the center of focus for Raleigh. I'm sure that people outside of that field of research work are ALL-SO intrigued on what goes on in a hard to access security zone (for people who don't have any business there). I can't wait to test my luck and try to visit it; Hopefully I won't get arrested. This place just OOZES tourism interest....

Seriously, how old are you? RTP is hardly a tourist destination; it's a major jobs center, being the world's largest research park. Jacksonville, as well as most cities actually, would kill to have something like it. It is the economic focus of the Triangle, acting as sort of a CBD for the region, but downtown Raleigh is the center of focus for Raleigh.

Despite Raleigh's recent growth, it's still one of the lesser known capitals, and since the 50's the 'big tourism draw' RTP haven't done much to change that.

RTP is not a tourist draw. Smh. And what proof do you have that Raleigh is one of the "lesser known capitals"? Oh that's right; some obscure national weather maps you mentioned. Yep, that's all the objective proof needed.

I can just go on and on with SO many areas that Raleigh will never be able to compete with Jax, hell just by geography alone. Aquatic recreation, fishing, military, tourism, intermodal railroad, mortgage industry and on and on and on. You all are freaking kidding yourselves if you think Raleigh is more well known than Jax, no matter how many pages of pics, or random Jax slighting info that yall pull up. A city that hosted a Super Bowl is lesser known than the ubertropolis melting pot Raleigh, LOL 

At this point, it doesn't even matter if Raleigh is more well-known that Jax or not. What really matters, and can't be disputed, is that it is more progressive than Jax, is more educated than Jax, is growing faster than Jax, and is experiencing more development than Jax. I don't see Jax competing with Raleigh in terms of higher education, college sports, hell even pro sports (at least the Hurricanes have won a championship), museums, knowledge-based jobs, downtown revitalization, etc.

You can keep downplaying Raleigh's success or go ahead and post another "London Paris New York Raleigh Hong Kong Tokyo" useless reply, but while you're doing that, Raleigh will continue blowing past Jax in categories that really matter when it comes to progress and quality of life. It's all pretty sad if you ask me.

[I-10east]

^^^ *Sigh* I guess that I'll reply yet again, even though I really don't wanna....

Seriously, how old are you? RTP is hardly a tourist destination; it's a major jobs center, being the world's largest research park. Jacksonville, as well as most cities actually, would kill to have something like it. It is the economic focus of the Triangle, acting as sort of a CBD for the region, but downtown Raleigh is the center of focus for Raleigh.

RTP is not a tourist draw. Smh. And what proof do you have that Raleigh is one of the "lesser known capitals"? Oh that's right; some obscure national weather maps you mentioned. Yep, that's all the objective proof needed.

Man, sarcasm certainly finds a way of flying over your head. I was being sarcastic because you kept mentioning RTP soooo many times concerning Raleigh, it was becoming very tiresome; It might as well be a tourist attraction of interest with how often that you mentioned it. RTP been there since the fifties, at some point long time ago it's 'bragging factor' kinda lost some luster; It's like mentioning the three First Coast area Naval bases which provides alot of jobs here; Great for the city, but not exactly new news. Of course the elitists will find a way to make some dumb 'Jax doesn't have ANY white collar jobs' correlation with RTP there.... 

At this point, it doesn't even matter if Raleigh is more well-known that Jax or not. What really matters, and can't be disputed, is that it is more progressive than Jax, is more educated than Jax, is growing faster than Jax, and is experiencing more development than Jax. I don't see Jax competing with Raleigh in terms of higher education, college sports, hell even pro sports (at least the Hurricanes have won a championship), museums, knowledge-based jobs, downtown revitalization, etc.

You can keep downplaying Raleigh's success or go ahead and post another "London Paris New York Raleigh Hong Kong Tokyo" useless reply, but while you're doing that, Raleigh will continue blowing past Jax in categories that really matter when it comes to progress and quality of life. It's all pretty sad if you ask me.

Since light sarcasm isn't your thing, Ill decline with mentioning Raleigh with the likes of cities like Abu Dhabi, although maybe when you account for the "MJ Raleigh hype-factor" they are slightly comparable...okay, I remember no sarcasm!

Okay playing devil's advocate, compare Raleigh's area's higher learning to many other metros, and you'll find similar results to here in Jax, if you were to compare them. Just like RTP, those colleges have been there for a long time; There is nothing that Jax (or most major metros) can do anything to compete with that. Granted they might not be as distinguished or whatever, but it's not like we don't have ANY colleges in Jax, and in Northern Florida.

No matter if the Carolina Hurricanes won a championship or not, that team will never be able to compete with the revenue of a NFL team. I guess by your logic, that makes the Hurricanes more 'well known' than any team who haven't won a championship, so I don't understand your reasoning on that one. I like hockey, but it has a 'niche' fanbase, opposed to the far more mainstream fanbase of the NFL. If you look at my comments earlier, I admit that Raleigh is doing some progressive things right now, more than Jax, but the buck stops there; I refuse to act as if Raleigh is the cities that I sarcastically compared it to. 

[I-10east]

^^^Man, you're really grasping for straws, or should I say a debate. I was just replying to what krazeeboi said. No that entire post wasn't about the NFL.

[simms3]

I see we're back to NFL?  I suppose the Jags are part of a far more important professional league, being that Raleigh "only" has an NHL team, but what about their 3 well known ACC football teams - NC State Wolfpack, Tarheels, and Duke?  I thought college football was far more important in the south??  Not to mention Triangle area college basketball - unmatched rivalries and center of focus every season's March NCAA championship series.

To squash the NFL argument once and for all - the NFL is about the only thing that puts Jax on the map, but it costs the city lots of money, and the Jags, and conversely Jacksonville as a city, have been a national target for folks now for years, since the SuperBowl, garnering lots of negative press and attention.  Not to mention the Jags are muy expensive.  Not to mention the Jax SuperBowl is considered by most to be a blunder, not a wonder.  Yes, the Jags organization is a positive, but it's not proven to bring jobs necessarily.  It's merely a cultural amenity that any city Jacksonville's size SHOULD have (aka a professional sports team).  We would have fared better for less money with a less expensive and more active professional sport, such as Baseball, Basketball, or even Hockey (Nashville has actually benefited from its hockey team and the arena is going off all the time, right in the thick of downtown).  Nashville also has multiple teams while Jax has one, and they are similar in size still...the argument that Jax is sooo important that it has NFL is moot.

But, comparing universities and RTP to the NFL, I'd say the combo of the former does exponentially more for their local economy and for putting them on the map of CEOs and the college educated or college bound crowd.  Which is more important to you?

Okay playing devil's advocate, compare Raleigh's area's higher learning to many other metros, and you'll find similar results to here in Jax, if you were to compare them. Just like RTP, those colleges have been there for a long time; There is nothing that Jax (or most major metros) can do anything to compete with that. Granted they might not be as distinguished or whatever, but it's not like we don't have ANY colleges in Jax, and in Northern Florida.

???Raleigh is basically up there with Boston, SF and Seattle in terms of educated populace.  The other thing that can't be measured is that I think Jax might be around ~25% college educated and Raleigh is ~40-45% (which is very substantial difference), but no offense to Jax, there aren't that many with degrees from the top institutions in the country.  I saw a report recently where the alum of the Ivy's matriculate, where the top engineering schools matriculate, where the top publics, and where the top privates, etc.  Raleigh made the list quite a few times, and obviously cities like NYC, SF, Boston, and DC rounded out the top for basically every top tier university.  Not only does Raleigh have far more people who have obtained a college degree (and also master's/PhD), but also has far more people who probably went to Harvard or Stanford or MIT.  FL as a state lags in general.

And for the record, I don't even like Raleigh, but it's another city that is making something of itself and only has things to share.  Jax is only in a position to learn because it hasn't really done one thing completely right yet.  Raleigh can teach, no matter how bland it is.  And given that it's a university heavy place, I'm sure teaching is one of its fortes.

[krazeeboi]

Man, sarcasm certainly finds a way of flying over your head. I was being sarcastic because you kept mentioning RTP soooo many times concerning Raleigh, it was becoming very tiresome; It might as well be a tourist attraction of interest with how often that you mentioned it.

You must have me confused with someone else. Before the post you responded to, I mentioned RTP a grand total of ONE time so I have no clue what you're talking about. If just one mention of the place rankles you THAT much, then that sounds personal on your part.

Sarcasm only works when it actually piggybacks off something that someone actually said.

RTP been there since the fifties, at some point long time ago it's 'bragging factor' kinda lost some luster; It's like mentioning the three First Coast area Naval bases which provides alot of jobs here; Great for the city, but not exactly new news. Of course the elitists will find a way to make some dumb 'Jax doesn't have ANY white collar jobs' correlation with RTP there....

RTP was there since the 50's but only started truly becoming a major economic driving force in the 80's. Raleigh's significant growth spurt began in the 90's due to it. But again, I only mentioned RTP once before that previous post in which you "sarcastically" referred to it is a tourist destination, so *I* certainly wasn't overhyping it.

Okay playing devil's advocate, compare Raleigh's area's higher learning to many other metros, and you'll find similar results to here in Jax, if you were to compare them. Just like RTP, those colleges have been there for a long time; There is nothing that Jax (or most major metros) can do anything to compete with that. Granted they might not be as distinguished or whatever, but it's not like we don't have ANY colleges in Jax, and in Northern Florida.

No one said there were NO colleges/universities in North Florida, but there are none of the level of Duke, UNC, and NC State at all.

If you look at my comments earlier, I admit that Raleigh is doing some progressive things right now, more than Jax, but the buck stops there; I refuse to act as if Raleigh is the cities that I sarcastically compared it to. 

And everything that has been mentioned so far plays into the more progressive things it's doing compared to Jax: higher learning, high-tech job growth, downtown development, etc. Your "sarcasm" is your way of flippantly dismissing Raleigh's progress compared to Jax. Jax has its advantages, even over Raleigh, but Raleigh has leveraged its advantages significantly more than Jax to the point where it's on the verge of overtaking Jax as its own MSA, without the rest of the Triangle, in terms of economy and growth.