When making the flight from Los Angeles to Raleigh the first thing that hits you when you begin to land is the sheer level of greenery compared to your familiar Los Angelino desert. Between exiting your gate and stepping out of RDU, two things will immediately surprise you. The first is the frequency with which people smile when they talk to you as well as their disarmingly friendly demeanor. The second is the crisp, piney smell that will gently waft its way into your nose once you step outside.
TIME magazine recently ranked Raleigh as the number one city in the Southeast, beating out larger, arguably more well-known cities such as Charlotte and Atlanta. As this Los Angelino transplant to the Old North State will tell you, this ranking is well-deserved.
When one thinks about the greatest cities in in a region, they might think of the largest and most cosmopolitan. So when I was living in the Southwest, everyone I knew seemed to believe that Los Angeles was the place to be, and everyone my family knew who wasn’t from Los Angeles flocked there under the pretense that it was the premiere place to be, too. I know from experience that when I moved from Los Angeles to Greensboro, a common question I got was “Why would you move here?” There was a time after my first moving there that I couldn’t really answer that question myself.
The two cities, and indeed the two states, seem like polar opposites, with LA and California steeped in a history of liberalism and trendsetting, and North Carolina and its cities, especially smaller, up-and-coming cities like Greensboro, are always presented as conservative hubs of tradition. However, as I’ve gained more familiarity with Raleigh, the rose-tinted, sunset saturated-glasses of Los Angeles have slowly been lifted from me. I’ve grown to fall in love with the City of Oaks, and it seems that my opinion is merely one of thousands, and for good reason.
At a time when many cities in the Southeastern U.S. are just now picking up the pieces from the economic downturn nearly a decade ago, Raleigh and the surrounding area have consistently topped lists from both Forbes and Money Magazine for being the one of the best locations for job growth in the country, one of the best locations to start a business in the country and the number two overall spot for jobs and careers.
Furthermore, Raleigh recently cemented her second-place spot on Forbes’ “Top Ten Cities for Tech Careers,” and also a seventh-place spot on Bizjournal’s list of startup hubs, and it’s no wonder given that nearly half of all of our residents hold a bachelor’s degree or higher. With all of this being said, it’s also no wonder that Raleigh is consistently ranked in the top five spots for lists of cities that are best for new college grads and young professionals.
With more than 120 restaurants, nearly 20 live music venues, hundreds of miles worth of greenways and parks, low unemployment, an entrepreneurial boom, a low cost of living and a college culture to boot, this description might seem to be glorifying Raleigh quite a bit, but doesn’t it deserve that?
With all of the divisiveness seemingly coming out of the woodwork lately, and with the work-week fast-approaching its end, I encourage you all to go out and appreciate the city before us. A city whose limitless drive to be cutting-edge and innovative, all while retaining a certain charm matched by no other city, will only get better with time and will keep its spot as one of the places to be.
