Fastest growing region in what, for the moment, is fastest growing state in the nation.
One in every five persons new to the state since 2000.
Road infrastructure from Raleigh to Charlotte, having halfway completed a twenty year Road building plan, is short of demand by almost precisely the amount skimmed off Gasoline and Road Taxes since 1989 by nearly invisible General Assembly dominated by ancient Democrat Oligarchy.
Public schools in Wake County public schools trying to maintain quality and failing for number of reasons, not the least of which is state and local government social engineering to "maintain diversity," together with problems inherent to the usual collaterals native to liberal experimentalism. PRIVATE SCHOOL and public Charter School infrastructure is exceptional, and exceptionally well positioned politically since Democrat Oligarchy is timid, more concerned with risk of rocking the boat (and growing Republican voting base at last reaching "competitiveness"). Home Schoolers well-organized.
Faith Community exceptional for comparable demographics.
All-Powerful State Legislature ("General Assembly," 120 House and 50 Senators) is hidden within present day news reporting dominated by National, International and then Local News, with sorry neglect of Raleigh's state government.
Highest tax burden of any state in the Southeast, for some higher than Massachusetts of New York State. (You've been warned.)
Same Democrat Oligarchy, however, tends to phase in regulatory burdens beginning in cities, now the largest part of NC population for the first time in centuries. Look to work in zoned suburbs and to commute by car from surrounding "rural" counties.
The farther away you end us from the cities, the better your quality of life will be. The commute will be the price.
Don't be afraid of the natives. There are very distinct native populations, despite your hearing what may seem the same southern accent... but all are friendly except for the most remote. Might seem "distant" but they are just cautious. They warm up quickly and are raised to say Yes Sir and Yes Ma'am and do not take kindly to being corrected by "outsiders" with regards to anything touching upon their culture, tastes, manner of living, etc. In this, they are sensitive above Texans, for example. Don't make the mistake of feeling shunned or frightened into hoarding up in the bland exurbias, but go a step further, just over the countylines, and thus avoid relaxing.
Start at your workplace, or preferred workplace, and move down the two-way path of least resistance, from areas as surrounded by concrete as any city in New Jersey, and find someplace at the other end where you can hear the wind blowing through the "long leaf pines" and the birds. You won't regret it, though the drive be long.
Oh, and smile and say nothing pro or con about strongly held views regarding various Universities. The rivalries are intense and passionately held, although seemingly irrational. Oligarchy used these divisions as a distraction from watching, too closely, it's usually petty grafts.
All in all, you'll find the people friendly and honest, very hard working, though victimized by that Oligarchy which, wisely, has married its rewards and punishments system to the pseudo-intelligensia, largely hold up on the campuses of the overly funded and independent University system.
Much more... so much more I could tell you. You'll be welcome but come prepared to offer labor and ideas and participation in keeping the state from becoming "the New Jersey of the South." Complaining we already have plenty of.
Though the accents seem different to the newcomers ear, we've become completely used to the accents from beyond in a state almost entirely formed by people who have moved here from elsewhere.
I'll be glad to engage in Q and A regarding NC matters large and small by Private Reply.
It is a beautiful place to live where the strains of growth are thought to be terrible by those who've not lived in places like Northern Virginia, South Miami or North Central Texas, etc., over the past 30 years. They may seem little problem for you if you've been through this before, but to my neighbors who still consider me to be non-native, though I am a true Southron and even part Cherokee, I have only lived here for twenty years. LOL. Write back with questions, specific inquiries. You've already got friends, plenty of fine people, hereabouts that you'll wonder all your life how you got along without.
God be with you, and drive carefully.
Great post.