The N&O reports that Raleigh has landed at the #1 spot on MSNBC’s Best Places To Live list and #4 on the Gay Real Estate USA’s Best Gay Ghettoes (tied with Tampa). Also, the #1 Best Place for Young Adults according to Bizjournals and the #1 ranking for Healthiest Cities for Men, from Men’s Health magazine. The article speculates City leaders may look back at this as the zenith of Raleigh’s ratings career. Those are nice little honors but those lists aren’t exactly from the Wall Street Journal, or The New York Times, or maybe I just don’t check out GayData.com as much as the next guy. This article seems to be begging a question and undeserving of front page status, especially after a 300 person rumble at the mall! It feels as though the entire angle of the article was shaped around gallery owner Lee Hansley’s (photo above) quote:
“I have just come to the conclusion that Raleigh has peaked in terms of these lists,” he said, noting that every good run must come to an end.
Well, start the presses: Lee Hansley just came to a conclusion about lists! Maybe Mr. Hansley should work harder to make Raleigh even healthier for Men’s Health and make our Gayborhood rating higher than Charlotte’s, rather than just resigning to failure. It’s great that our region continues to earn high ratings in lists that might attract the Creative Class but we have a LONNNGGG way to go before we run out of needed improvements: Regional mass transit, bicycle lanes, free feeder buses circulating downtown, converting government-owned, downtown, warehouses to space for art galleries and non-profits; a focus on green technologies for transit, public spaces and utilities; more hot dog stands outside Legends, and fewer riots at the shopping mall.
We at RDUwtf aren’t perfect. We need to regain our ability to center images to the column, and we will. We aren’t resigned to failure!
And what’s with all the two-way and three-way ties in the survey? Scandalous!
That gay ghetto listing was kinda humorous to me in a way. Raleigh? Funny!
What I thought was somewhat useless of it was that it never mentioned WHERE in Raleigh the “gay ghetto” was. I mean, someone moving here actually looking for it would probably want to know. Though most long-time Raleighites know that the Warehouse District and the old apartment buildings to the west along Morgan/Hillsborough is where it is. But new relocatees might not know….would be a shame for some poor unsuspecting gay guy to move here and end up in some suburban subdivision in north Raleigh surrounded by conservatives & homophobes. But I suppose they’d figure it out eventually.
Continuing in the N&O-watch vein, check out today’s article (and the frothy comments thread attached) on the architects on the city council:
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/wake/raleigh/story/1158844.html
This raises a lot of interesting issues. I will merely comment with my perpetual question: “why does it have to be so fucking ugly?”
“more hot dog stands outside Legends”
Nice.
This is great. While Raleigh might seem more gay friendly than Goldsboro, it is no gay mecca. People are friendly, even right wing conservatives, but in no way does that compare to Atlanta or DC. As a gay man that has lived here for over 10 years, I love Raleigh and its people, but it is no Midtown Atlanta.
This is kinda funny! How did I miss the article for almost a year???