In North Carolina, redistricting is done my the General Assembly (State Senate and State House); the Governor does not have a veto on redistricting matters (this is significant because there is a chance that the Republicans could take one or both houses of the General Assembly next week). I don't complain too much about the Dems' gerrymandering, because if the GOP controls the process, their district lines will be just as creative.
Whichever party (or parties; it could be a split decision) controls the redistricting process, they'll have to answer to judges appointed to enforce the provisions of the Voting Right Act of 1965. Specifically, two "minority" districts (currently Districts 1 and 12) will have to be preserved. If the GOP controls the process, their obvious strategy will be to make the black districts even blacker, and likely even more attenuated, causing the adjacent districts to be marginally more Republican.
Here's a look at the current Congressional Districts statewide:
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As krb noted, Raleigh's mostly Republican suburbs were carefully carved up to minimize their influence. Western Wake County, including Cary and Apex, is strongly Republican; as a part of NC-4, it was attached to strongly Democratic Durham County (a large, politically active black community, plus blue-collar whites, plus Duke University), and notoriously liberal Orange County (home of my beloved but leftish alma mater, UNC). Historically, Durham and Orange have provided more than enough Dem votes for Price to overcome Republican Western Wake. But might the Dems have stretched things a little thin? With Obama not on the ballot, will the turnout of blacks in Durham and the vegetarian Birkenstockers in Chapel Hill fall off? Hasn't Western Wake grown rapidly, and filled in with more Republicans since the district lines were last drawn in 2001? Stay tuned.
A big chunk of northern and eastern Wake County (Wake Forest, Zebulon, and -- who could forget? -- Lizard Lick), also mostly white and Republican, is attached to a string of mostly rural, heavily black counties across the northern tier to form NC-13. So, eastern Wake's Republican vote is overpowered.
And finally, central and southeastern Raleigh, mostly black and heavily Dem, is attached to Etheridge's elaborately drawn NC-2, serving to (so the Dems hope, and it has been the case so far) cancel out the growing GOP vote in suburbanizing Johnston and Harnett Counties.
It will be interesting to watch on election night, and should the Republicans prevail in the State Senate and/or State House (obviously, they'll have to overcome the gerrymandered nature of their own districts, but that's a whole 'nother story), the redistricting process will be fascinating.