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We Excel at Mediocrity - 9/1/2010
I’ve lived in the Raleigh area for about 25 years. I am in constant contact with all sorts of Raleigh inhabitants, so I’m well acquainted with the life of the city. The greater Raleigh area includes several cities and towns, but Raleigh is by far the largest municipality. Immediately to the southwest of Raleigh is the town of Cary. Further to the west are Durham and Chapel Hill, which are considerably more diverse and funky than Raleigh and Cary. There are a few small towns with some charms, such as Hillsborough and Pittsboro, otherwise the outlying areas are full of featureless suburbs.
Maybe I should preface my comments by saying that I lived in poor but fascinating places before moving here. It was a conscious decision, to leave interesting but poor places to come to a dull but prosperous place. I needed economic stability during my career-building period and was willing to live without a vibrant cultural scene or stimulating surroundings. Now that I am nearing retirement I ask myself why should I stay here, because there’s really very little of interest to me.
It’s fine here if you are raising children and want a easy suburban lifestyle. This might be one of the best places in the country if that’s the where you are in life. Raleigh is not much of a city…it’s more a collection of suburbs…the downtown is small and doesn’t have much to offer other than a few dozen bars and restaurants catering to the 20 to 35 crowd. Most people’s lives are conventional and revolve around their children, their children’s schools, their swim club, their church, their work, their possessions, their vacations at the beach, and the handful of strip shopping centers they frequent. Watching and keeping up with the neighbors is a big thing. Maybe these preoccupations are very common across the country, but they seem particularly pronounced (and vapid) here.
There is very little civic engagement outside of the immediate daily routine. Most people don’t have much of a sense of being citizens of Raleigh, of belonging to something bigger than the church or swim club. I think this is partly due to the kind of people Raleigh attracts and the kind of place Raleigh is. As Gertrude Stein famously said, There is no there there.
The economy in the region is remarkably stable and prosperous. The cost of living is a little higher than the national average but is much easier to deal with than that of the West Coast or the Northeast. This is one of the best places in the South to live…of course being better than Jackson, Mississippi or Birmingham, Alabama isn’t saying much.
In the Raleigh and Cary suburbs people tend to be conservative and conformist. They can be very smug: they live the good life and why won’t everybody get on board their suburban bandwagon? For instance, to live in a contemporary house is “strange.” Black clothes are“strange.” There’s no value seen in diversity…people who are different are automatically “strange” if not outright inferior. Your house upkeep (very important!), religious views, clothing, possessions and your “people,” (i.e., your extended family) will be constantly scrutinized for any note of waywardness. No front yard vegetable gardens, please!
There are many cultural events happening in the larger Triangle region at any given time. Cultural life mostly emanates from the universities (Duke and UNC more so than NCSU). These cultural events are usually on the university campuses and are therefore a little difficult to find the venue and then find a parking place. You have to stay on top of the cultural calendar and plan ahead if you want to go out and do something other than eat and drink. For a metro area of one million plus, there’s really not much of a visual arts scene. The restaurants in Durham and Chapel Hill are generally better than those in Raleigh so be prepared to drive an hour each way for an evening of theater or dance performance and a memorable meal. Of course if you are so inclined you can become rabid fans of our hockey team and one or another of our college basketball teams. The struggles of these teams are major topics of conversation (along with the kids’ schools).
In any event, you must have a car…preferably a car for each member of your household who can drive. And be prepared to drive a lot.
Like in most of the South educational attainment and intellect are not emphasized or particularly respected. Raleigh has the state’s A & M university and it shows. We’re all about nuts and bolts here…lots of engineers, computer people and government bureaucrats…the humanists are all in Durham or Chapel Hill. The education of people who don’t make it past high school is particularly abysmal. Having some work done on your house, or even having some keys made, can be like a season in hell. The surrounding counties are shockingly backward. Yes, there are Confederate flags and people with incomprehensibly bad grammar right outside of the metro area. If you are black, a foreigner or gay, there are rural gas stations where you won’t want to get out of your car.
Though full of trees, there isn’t much open space or natural beauty around. There are a handful of nice parks but after a while you’ve been to them enough times to have them memorized. The summers have become so hot, humid and long that the weather for four months of the year is not conducive to outdoor activities. The mountains are quite beautiful but are several hours drive away; the beach is not charming or particularly appealing, and is mostly stripped out with businesses appealing to the Southern working class. There are some more remote, “wild” beaches on the Outer Banks, but they are a long drive away and are just the same monotonous brown sand dunes for miles but without the strip development. Otherwise the county side is totally settled, one little house after trailer after little house along the roads for miles.
In short, if you are young, creative, intellectual, liberal, if you have particular cultural interests or talents, if you are a member of a minority, there are so many better places to live. If you find yourself drawn to this area, you should strongly consider living in Durham, Chapel Hill or Carrboro, which are not so straight-laced as Raleigh or Cary. If you are white, conservative, religious, raising young children, want a suburban house, and want to keep the dangers of urban life at a distance, Raleigh might just be the perfect place for you.
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