Both my wife and I are both from Raleigh and both of us graduated from UNC back in 1980. I remember when Cary was hardly bigger than a cow pasture and the other thing out there was MacGregor Downs.
You could not pay me enough to live up there now. The cost of living is astronomical and Raleigh is HUGE, not to mention, it is being overrun with yankee libs. Now that both my parents are gone I really have no reason go to home, except to see my inlaws, both of whom are now in failing health as well.
My brother lives with his family in Greenville, NC and my sister moved out to San Fransickness for a job. She is a conservative island in a sea of liberals but she is managing somehow.
We lived in Mt. Gilead, NC 40 yrs. ago in a lakeside cottage. It’s not too far from Raleigh; and we used to drive over to Raleigh to get KFC because there wasn’t any place to eat out in Mt. Gilead - well, except a burger joint in somebody’s house there. Raleigh didn’t seem all that big then, but I’m sure it grew. Discouraging to hear that the snotty liberals have taken over NC.
I was born in Raleigh, NC but grew up in Fla. My grandparents used to live in Zebulon, NC on 5 acres. At that time it was rural pasture and small family farms. When my grandfather passed away they sold the land and she moved in with my uncle in Wilmington. Years ago I went back to Zebulon for old times sake and it is nothing but track homes and yankees’ liberal madness.
Wilmington isn’t much better. Nothern libs who could not afford the Hamptons or the VA/NC outer banks flooded Wilmington and have made the cost of living outrageous. Not as bad as RTD but still a southern town that is becoming a lib enclave along the lines of the NJ or Delaware shore.
As a kid I spent many summers in Long Beach, NC with my cousins. Back then it was sleepy beach town. Now just another lib infested over priced waterfront community.
Haven’t been back to NC in years and have no desire nor plans to return.
I can relate to your sister I once worked for a company in Oakland. Hated living there. We’d have wackos protesting outside the office on any given day. Protesting such crazy things as the laborers used in harvesting almonds and yelling we should quit buying almonds.
I’ve been fortunate to live throughout the country and the worst places I lived were liberal bastions like CA., OR., and MN. IA was an odd place a mix of liberalism and conservatism with a twist, like the neighbor who one day is a lib and the next a conservative. AR and MS were conservative and would be places to retire to, if one could tolerate the humid death star summers, but not as a career place.
Am currently in Fla. due to economics but not anchored here even with family all living here.
The best places I have lived were OK, went to OU so biased even though OK is a great conservative state, and TX. But if I could live in one place I’d chose WY or Rapid City,SD. Business friendly, low taxes, individualism not collectivism revered, great quality and cost of living if one isn’t a “big city” person.