OT: How is Durham, NC?

[WadeKnicks2010]

I'm thinking of going to school in Duke next year(2010-2011) and I was wondering if i can get some opinions of those of you who are from the area. I'm from NYC originally but spent some years years in the suburbs upstate too. What should I expect? Is it just all houses/farms or is there actually some night life and places to hang out, shop, experience culture, and meet the ladies? What can I expect? Thanks in advance.

[CatNation]

ghetto

[e4Nf6]

What should I expect? Is it just all houses/farms

Farms? you haven't spent much time in the south I gather.....Durham is a big city. Running water, Electricity, Indoor plumbing, the whole nine. It's also a college-town with lots of bars and restaurants.

ghetto

Well...there may be some poor Black/Mexican people there, so if that's a turn-off don't go.

I lived in Charlotte for 25 years and will be moving back soon, my sister has lived in Durham for many years and I've spent a great deal of time there over the years. To be 100% honest the most common opinion I hear about Durham is that it's a great little city with the exception of all the Duke kids.

I love the tiny independent bars, book stores, and restaurants that the city seems to have a lot of. I like the college-town atmosphere. I like going to the Mexican part of town and getting real Mexican tamales. If I wasn't moving back to Charlotte I would probably go to Durham. My sister likes to point out how "authentic" Durham is compared to "fake-plastic" Charlotte.

In any case, I would highly recommend Durham, Unless you are a stereotypical douche-bag Duke student, in which case, go somewhere else.

[Paydro70]

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

UNC UNC UNC UNC

OK fine Duke's not so bad. Durham's had some gang problems but it's not like, um, New York or anything.

[amcoolio]

Duke is right in the middle of some sketchy neighborhoods. I lived there for two years when I went to NCSSM, which is a high school right next to Duke. Its definitely not rural.

[Walt Cronkite]

These people are lying. It's full of barns and farmhouses. I would travel up more often (as I have a need for their fine grains and tobaccy), but I hate having to venture out there. You don't want to getcher pickup stranded in no man's land because you ran into a wild elk--taint no way to spend a fortnight while waiting for the next trainload of provisions to come in from the big city.


..........

Durham was just named one of US News and World Report's top 10 cities to live in. You got in to Duke?

[Walt Cronkite]

I wish I would've said I take trips to Durham from Raleigh by tractor instead of pickup

[boogydown]

If I offend anyone I apologize but the city is boring, the people are cranky, not social in anyway, and Durham is a very small, beat up, and boring city.

I've been to many places in the world, many. I lived in Chicago for many years, I moved down to Raleigh because of business and spent a lot of time in Durham. I can safely say I am happy to be out of Raleigh Triangle Area.

In summary

Cary - Family rural city
Durham - Not maintained boring city.
Raleigh - Bigger city of the three but extremely small downtown with minimal things to do, clubs/nightlife are below average, and the city almost seems like it's a dead city at times.

PROS
- It's safe
- It's family oriented
- Future growth which I think will eventually stop, slowdown and shift some place when the midwest starts to pick up again. You can't compare growth to the major cities who are constantly growing.
- Good schools there with Wake, Duke, NC State, UNC all within a hour from each other.
- Good college basketball environment during the fall. Get ready for that.
- Good restaurants, lots of things to eat
- Good shopping malls
- Only 3 hours from Charlotte, 4 hours from D.C, 6 hours from Atlanta.
- Charlotte is far superior over Raleigh. Raleigh cannot catch up with Charlotte long term, and Charlotte is EXTREMELY safe made up of financial institutions and a good place for a career if you go that path. Sorta reminds me of Boston there.
- D.C is not extremely fun, but it has a lot of things to do during the day time.

CONS
- If you don't know many people, you better start because without knowing people you will find yourself very lonely in Raleigh. You need friends in this city in order to have fun.
- You cannot compare any major city to Raleigh/Durham combined. Extremely tiny, boring cities. You likely will never need to spend a minute downtown.
- Spread out.

If you decide to go to Duke, just be thankful you grew up in NYC and you get the chance to return home, and remember what I said to you as I warned you

[boogydown]

These people are lying. It's full of barns and farmhouses. I would travel up more often (as I have a need for their fine grains and tobaccy), but I hate having to venture out there. You don't want to getcher pickup stranded in no man's land because you ran into a wild elk--taint no way to spend a fortnight while waiting for the next trainload of provisions to come in from the big city.


..........

Durham was just named one of US News and World Report's top 10 cities to live in. You got in to Duke?

There is no way. These are opinion based reports, and I look at these often and saw Durham only once out of about 100 articles. The cities to live in are

Austin - Growing economically faster than any other city, and consistent. Phoenix V.2
New York City - It's gigantic, you can't complain when here. Extremely expensive.
Chicago - Cheaper than most bigger cities, and yet extremely big, 3rd largest, 2nd biggest downtown, unlimited things to do.
LA - If you're talented, you'll always find a job here. 2nd largest cities US
Seattle - When will the Supersonics return? This city is what Wake County should be. A 4 in one city with Redmond, Bellevue, Tacoma, and Seattle. Bellevue is about as big as Charlotte's downtown, and Seattle is bigger than it looks.
Phoenix - Growing fast, small city, but good place for jobs.
Charlotte - Growing fast, nice and safe city, not that big, but some things to do from time to time.

Ill stop there.

[e4Nf6]

New York City - It's gigantic, you can't complain when here. Extremely expensive.
LA - If you're talented, you'll always find a job here. 2nd largest cities US

Different strokes for different folks....

I lived in NYC very briefly once and I definitely prefer a place like Durham. LA is just out of the question, you couldn't pay me enough money to live there.

Of course if your measure of a place is how many distinct establishments you can hit while bar-hopping then a place like Durham can't really compare to NYC or LA. Personally, I'm not going to choose a place to live based on the quality of the bar-hopping. Some people would disagree.

[CatNation]

Charlotte a safe city?

"With a crime rate of 101 per one thousand residents, Charlotte has one of the highest crime rates in America compared to all communities of all sizes - from the smallest towns to the very largest cities. One's chance of becoming a victim of either violent or property crime here is one in 10. Within North Carolina, more than 90% of the communities have a lower crime rate than Charlotte."

"For Charlotte, we found that the violent crime rate is one of the highest in the nation, across communities of all sizes (both large and small). Violent offenses tracked included forcible rape, murder and non-negligent manslaughter, armed robbery, and aggravated assault, including assault with a deadly weapon. According to NeighborhoodScout's analysis of FBI reported crime data, your chance of becoming a victim of one of these crimes in Charlotte is one in 74.

Significantly, based on the number of murders reported by the FBI and the number of residents living in the city, NeighborhoodScout's analysis shows that Charlotte experiences one of the higher murder rates in the nation when compared with cities and towns for all sizes of population, from the largest to the smallest."

I live in Charlotte, but as long as you stay in the right areas aka away from Hidden Valley etc youll be ok

[fatlever]

walt... your post slayed me.... "fortnight" LOL that's classic.

my 2 cents... if you got in to duke and you can afford to go...... who cares what the surrounding town looks like. you go. you'll be in a college town. you dont have to leave the campus area if you dont want. it shouldnt matter if duke is in the middle of a crap factory in haiti. you still go... unless you are also considering offers from brown, yale, stanford, davidson, cornell etc... in that case, duke would be last on that list. cornell is the most beautiful campus i've ever seen and ithica has to be one of the most unique cities in the states. and for small rich nerd schools, i'd take davidson any day over duke.

that being said... i went to durham a few weeks ago to see the greatest band in the history of the universe (steely dan) at the brand new durham performing arts center. that place was nice. the town looked fine to me, based on the 2 blocks i saw. haha.

[e4Nf6]

Significantly, based on the number of murders reported by the FBI and the number of residents living in the city, NeighborhoodScout's analysis shows that Charlotte experiences one of the higher murder rates in the nation when compared with cities and towns for all sizes of population, from the largest to the smallest."

Source?

I'm not saying you're wrong, good info is difficult to find, but this list shows Charlotte as 73rd in murder rate, It is from 2005 though, so it's possibly outdated.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0934323.html

[Walt Cronkite]

Here is that USN&WR blurb I mentioned: http://www.usnews.com/articles/business ... l?PageNr=2

Austin is nice, but with "Phoenix v 2"... man, you couldn't have set the bar any lower. I've visited most of the major cities in the US... Phoenix is a flat, dirty city. I think Austin is already better than Phoenix.

NYC is fun to visit, Brooklyn would be fun to live in.

Haven't been to Chicago actually, still on my list.

LA was awful. The beach communities near by aren't as bad, but really, LA? Far better California areas in the south (San Diego) and north (San Francisco).

Seattle is awesome except for the **** weather.

Charlotte is meh to me. I've had a lot of fun times, but I've had some not so great ones, too. I have lots of family there and I traveled up quite often for Bobcats games, so I've been to lots of the late night uptown locations... a bar is a bar.

LOL @ : "you need friends in this city in order to have fun"... like that isn't true of anywhere you'd ever live. You could live on a tropical paradise or in Toyko and you're going to eventually go crazy if you don't make friends.

Glad you liked that Fats, like I posted afterwards, I wish I would've put some more thought into it.

[WadeKnicks2010]

Wow thanks a lot guys. Much more info than I expected. Yeah I went online for this a little but couldn't find much useful information and I have interviews coming in a few months so I just wanted some first hand information. Thanks a bunch, you guys are the greatest.

[Paydro70]

While I think boogydown's list is pretty funny, there's no question that as a young man, I would put Raleigh pretty low on my list. As I summarized on the OTB for someone else thinking about the triangle, it's really not an "exciting" place. Great place to live and work and raise a family, not so great to raise hell.

[Walt Cronkite]

Eh, tons of college kids in the area, many bars on every campus... I don't really know what else is necessary to raise hell. There could be better venues and things could be designed better (read:parking), but that's an issue with every city, which is why in the big ones there are cabs everywhere. The triangle isn't an established location, but it's a "happening" place.

Also funny about boogydown's post: the idea that the Triangle, an area built up by medicine, research and technology because of it's educated populace, will eventually stop... because of the midwest.

People come to NC to work or get educated. They end up staying because of the weather and affordable cost of living. The majority of the people I run into are transplants, not people born and raised here... I wonder why that is...

[Paydro70]

Public transportation would be nice, for instance. It's immeasurably better to be able to go out and make it home without needing a DD.

Realistically, if I'm in Raleigh, I can go to Glenwood south, to Moore Square, maybe to Hillsborough street? It's definitely not the same as NYC, DC, Chicago, etc. Plus like I noted in that OTB thread, there's not nearly so many interesting ethnic areas as in major cities. I'm not saying Raleigh's bad, far from it, just that if I didn't know anybody there, there are many places I would rather spend my mid 20s.

For going to college, though, it certainly gets the job done. I completely concur with Fats, Duke is a good enough school that you should strongly consider it no matter what. Durham is definitely better than New Haven, CT, anyway.

Totally right about the economy though... three major universities + weather + RTP = economy. When I was in elementary school over half my class was transplants (especially after IBM moved down). Even stranger is the idea that "major cities are constantly growing." No, they're not, in fact they often shrink because people don't want to live in them any more. The Northeast has gotten steadily less important as time has gone by. SUNBELT FOREVAR

[Walt Cronkite]

Yea, transport is definitely a mess. Not only are there few public options (where we're talking about trollies and busses) but everything's so spread out... Raleigh at least has certainly not become what it was planned to be (capital city of a topnotch agricultural state)

If I couldn't travel I would go nuts being stuck in NC, but I think it's an excellent place to live day-to-day.

http://www.bullcityrising.com -blog for Durham stuff.

[fatlever]

talk about shrinking cities... its crazy what is happening to detroit. that was once a top 5 city in population behind only ny, la, chicago and houston... might have even been top 4 at one point. now? its fallen way way down on the list and i doubt it will ever get back.

did you guys read the article about how detroit doesnt have a single national grocery chain in the city? wow. thats nuts.

how much worse will things get in detroit? will it get to gary, indiana bad... a town that is now, basically a ghost town.