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If you stood on the border of Raleigh and Cary you would not know any difference. Depending on where you live in Raleigh you'd have: strip malls, some nice parks and suburbs. I lived in Raleigh for 4 yrs, about a mile from Crabtree Valley Mall. Hmmm mall vs. strip mall. Yawn. Nothing interesting going on unless I got in my car and drove 15 - 20 min at a minimum.
You have to go towards downtown Raleigh to get something different than the standard 'burb 'n strip mall scene.
Umstead Park? You can access this same huge national park from (you got it) Cary or Raleigh.
I live in Cary now. No HOA, a 22 yr old community, every house looks different, is painted different. Some yards are well-kept, others...not as much.
And to get to downtown Raleigh is the same 15 - 20 min worth of driving time. Mall? I can go to Cary Towne Center instead of Crabtree. Big Whoop.
I joke about it, but really don't hate it, but wouldn't want to live there - it's the containment area. It kinda reminds me of Gitmo - Gitmo is in Cuba but is a US military base - even though it's in Cuba, it's not really Cuba - kinda the same for Cary - it's in NC, but it's not really NC
Every time I see someone mention that Cary is the "rich" or "upscale" part of the Triangle, I just have to laugh. Towns of those descriptions don't have single-wides off the main roads (near DMV), or abandoned buildings near million dollar homes (near Preston). I'm sure I'm jaded from living in CA, but there's just no comparison between somewhere like Cary and somewhere like Los Gatos or Palo Alto in CA.
For us we just felt Apex had more of a small town vibe than Cary did, so we built in Apex. We don't "despise" Cary, but it just felt too manufactured for us.
Every time I see someone mention that Cary is the "rich" or "upscale" part of the Triangle, I just have to laugh. Towns of those descriptions don't have single-wides off the main roads (near DMV), or abandoned buildings near million dollar homes (near Preston). I'm sure I'm jaded from living in CA, but there's just no comparison between somewhere like Cary and somewhere like Los Gatos or Palo Alto in CA.
Have Los Gatos or Palo Alto grown as rapidly as Cary did in the past 20 years, swallowing up areas that were once sparsely developed? That Cary might encompass a few mobile homes or abandoned old houses doesn't seem to me to exclude the possibility that its demographics might skew toward higher income ranges than some other parts of the Triangle.
Have Los Gatos or Palo Alto grown as rapidly as Cary did in the past 20 years, swallowing up areas that were once sparsely developed? That Cary might encompass a few mobile homes or abandoned old houses doesn't seem to me to exclude the possibility that its demographics might skew toward higher income ranges than some other parts of the Triangle.
Towns in the Bay Area can't grow; there's flat out no land remaining to build on.
People act as if you drive over the Cary town line and all of a sudden there is some sort of magical transformation that takes place. There are plenty of neighborhoods in North Raleigh, Apex, Wake Forest, Holly Springs, and elsewhere that plug right into the stereotypical assumptions about Cary as well-the things that people hold in contempt about their idea of "Cary" are not exclusive to Cary.
Take a ride out to Glen Laurel in Clayton and tell me what you see-plenty of the types of homes that Cary-bashers love to pick on, and they are in JOHNSTON COUNTY! OMG! Cary-itis is spreading! You mean to tell me that people want to live in a nice safe subdivision? You mean to tell me that people want to take pride in their homes? And they really make enough money to afford all of this decadence and luxury? What a horrible disease! I hope someone figures out a way to stop all of this because clearly it is a huge problem that needs to be quarantined.
Cary is big and varied. It's old and new. It's wealthy, upper middle class, working class, and poor. It's squeaky clean and unkempt. It's suburban and rural. It's yankee and redneck. It's rude and courteous. It is all of these things at the same time. You don't want to live in a beige house with a well-kept lawn? No problem-there is plenty of Cary that does NOT fit into that stereotype.
You can complain all you want about the heavy-handed local government but at the end of the day there are only 6 municipalities in the entire state of North Carolina with a larger population than Cary and in that context I give the town a lot of credit. Its parks, greenways, and municipal services are all exceptional. Cary has a municipal Amphitheater that draws national acts and the NC Symphony. The roads are well maintained and attractive for the most part. All of this takes place with a lower local tax rate than every other Triangle town except Apex.
People act as if you drive over the Cary town line and all of a sudden there is some sort of magical transformation that takes place. There are plenty of neighborhoods in North Raleigh, Apex, Wake Forest, Holly Springs, and elsewhere that plug right into the stereotypical assumptions about Cary as well-the things that people hold in contempt about their idea of "Cary" are not exclusive to Cary.
Take a ride out to Glen Laurel in Clayton and tell me what you see-plenty of the types of homes that Cary-bashers love to pick on, and they are in JOHNSTON COUNTY! OMG! Cary-itis is spreading! You mean to tell me that people want to live in a nice safe subdivision? You mean to tell me that people want to take pride in their homes? And they really make enough money to afford all of this decadence and luxury? What a horrible disease! I hope someone figures out a way to stop all of this because clearly it is a huge problem that needs to be quarantined.
Cary is big and varied. It's old and new. It's wealthy, upper middle class, working class, and poor. It's squeaky clean and unkempt. It's suburban and rural. It's yankee and redneck. It's rude and courteous. It is all of these things at the same time. You don't want to live in a beige house with a well-kept lawn? No problem-there is plenty of Cary that does NOT fit into that stereotype.
You can complain all you want about the heavy-handed local government but at the end of the day there are only 6 municipalities in the entire state of North Carolina with a larger population than Cary and in that context I give the town a lot of credit. Its parks, greenways, and municipal services are all exceptional. Cary has a municipal Amphitheater that draws national acts and the NC Symphony. The roads are well maintained and attractive for the most part. All of this takes place with a lower local tax rate than every other Triangle town except Apex.
For us we just felt Apex had more of a small town vibe than Cary did, so we built in Apex. We don't "despise" Cary, but it just felt too manufactured for us.
That's funny because I live close to the Cary/Apex line and cannot tell the difference between the two.
Cary is dispised for the same reason Durham is picked on for crime, Clayton is picked on for being "country" or KKK,ect. People stereotype a place and never let it change.
I would have gotten an A+ 3 years ago... my grades are deteriorating but not nearly as quickly as my eyesight!
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