Growing up in Raleigh
By Kristopher Larson

As a Generation Xer, my experience of growing up in Raleigh in the 1980s was in many ways shaped by the lifestyle preferences of the Baby Boomers. The proscriptive American Dream refined the concept of housing simply: single-family houses on quarter-acre lots. Neighborhoods featured a collection of similarly-sized, similarly-adorned homes, rendering neighborhoods as a collection of households of similar ways and means.

At the time, Raleigh’s population was around 175,000. More than 200,000 people have since moved to my hometown. To accommodate that growth, Raleigh mainly grew out, rather than up. Bulldozers worked tirelessly to rip down Raleigh’s pine forests to make way for subdivision after subdivision – eventually the suburbs would reach Falls Lake, and now of course, they stretch beyond.

As a boy, I often felt isolated in the suburban environment. Sociologists have since coined a term to describe this phenomenon: suburban angst. Mobility was limited to the point of prohibition; sidewalks were rare, and a car was needed to get anywhere worth going.

Accessing the closest city park, Optimist, required crossing two six-lane, heavily traveled roads, Six Forks and Lynn. As a result, the majority of our neighborhood games took part in cul-de-sacs or on our neighbors’ manicured lawns, much to their dismay.

I cannot recall the exact number of tennis balls, baseballs and whiffle balls that wound up in stormwater drains, but I certainly recall the disappointment I felt when a tied-up game had to be suspended until someone could find a suitable replacement.

When a ball couldn’t be found, we reluctantly resorted to the reliable entertainment standby, the television. Countless summer afternoons were lost to Atari or Nintendo, two of the great innovations that ultimately revolutionized the field of babysitting.

In what I still consider the most important decision my parents made about my development, education and maturation, I was bussed across town to the County’s magnet schools.

At the time, the magnet schools were mostly located in the distressed neighborhoods that wrapped downtown. Views through the bus windows revealed a world very different than north Raleigh; I can still recall the feeling that those areas somehow felt like an entirely different city.

The hour-long school bus journey transported me from the frontier of mostly-haves to a land that appeared populated with have-nots. The juxtaposition of such radically different places existing within the same city was altogether palpable, frightening and compelling.

I may have been too young to understand the complexities of growth, economic disparity, and the hangovers of red-lining, but I wasn’t too young to notice distinct differences in the form and scale of downtown’s built environment. Buildings and homes were closer together, some featured shops in the ground floor, and perhaps most importantly, kids didn’t have to rely on their gracious parents to taxi them around between activities.

 One of the great attributes of magnet schools was that they attracted students from all over Raleigh. The school I attended, Emma Conn, was populated with kids of every size, color and shape. This was a noticeable departure from the homogeneity of my neighborhood and provided me with a more realistic view of the composition of the greater Raleigh community.

Often, I would visit my friends in the downtown neighborhoods on weekends or during the summer. While visiting friends in neighborhoods like Oakwood or Mordecai, I recall being mystified and jealous when we could walk to places like Krispy Kreme or the comic book shop. I wanted to live somewhere where I could walk to places.

Reflecting now, the school bus did more than carry me between my home and the institutions that would begin shaping my mind, character and personality. Sure, I learned a few dirty jokes and how to pencil fight, but the bus also provided me a glimpse of my future. The view from that bus window showed me a world excitingly different from home, a place so close by that it felt so far away.

One of the highlights of the bus ride home each day was seeing a 7-Up mural that featured the soft drink’s iconic ‘80s mascot, Spot, at the intersection of Wilmington and Davie Streets. Much to my pleasure, that mural still exists today, albeit with two decades of weathered wear and tear.

Today, the 7-Up mural may be faded and peeling, but the downtown that envelops it has since been spruced up and rehabilitated. Most of the historic buildings in the downtown have been purchased and restored, many of which now house chic taverns or trendy art galleries. Nearly 1,800 new residential units are under construction or in the pipeline, and the office and retail markets are growing significantly.

While the investment totals are certainly impressive, more important is each individual project’s contribution to a larger, improved whole. Like a jigsaw puzzle, each individual project is a piece that contributes a swath of colors or shapes. In this case, however, the colors and shapes are places to live, work, play, eat or relax. Assembled correctly, the aggregate pieces combine to form a vibrant, urban neighborhood that features a distinctive sense of place.

In addition to the changes taking place in downtown, areas across north Raleigh have matured and diversified as well. Commercial developments like North Hills and new urbanist communities like Falls River have reintroduced pedestrian-accessibility to the suburbs. No longer is everything designed for the automobile. The term ‘mixed-use’ has evolved in the community’s vocabulary, moving from a negative to a positive connotation.

Real estate in Raleigh’s walkable places is thriving, a reflection of the inherent value that buyers place in having transportation choices. Still, there is a need to do more, as the world’s fuel crisis worsens.

We need to retrofit Raleigh’s neighborhoods and older shopping centers to make them more pedestrian-friendly, to include a better mix of office, residential and retail uses. We need to improve access to retail goods, especially in areas like southeast Raleigh that have only received a sliver of our city’s new commercial investments.

As Raleigh’s population continues to grow, we face hard choices on issues like infill density – unfortunately, there are far fewer forests remaining, so growing up will have to replace growing out. This will be a reality across the city, not just downtown.   

For me, the 7-Up mural is a constant that ties the past to the future. Now when I walk by it, I smile and recollect the decades-old images in my mind of the mysterious downtown with its skyscrapers and neglected, century-old buildings.

Today, of course, that corner is wholly improved, save the mural. Shimmering glass structures converge on every side, and the sirens of progress, jackhammers and drills emanate all around.

Raleigh continues to grow, mostly for the better. We are a community that has begun to offer its citizens more lifestyle choices. And while Raleigh still has the serene, established neighborhoods that many favor, we are finally building a downtown that is emblematic of a city of our size, and one that can be a point of pride for all Raleigh citizens.  (Larson is senior planner with Raleigh’s Urban Design Center and an urban resident.)

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