INC NEWS - Durham has soul; Chapel Hill has soul; Raleigh? Bless its heart (N&O)

[John Schelp]

Durham has soul. Chapel Hill has soul. Raleigh? Bless
its heart. (News & Observer, 30 Jan 2007)

Where's the soul? Raleigh has friendly folks -- smart
ones too -- a good standard of living and a
championship hockey team, but ...
 
It might smell a little funny, but New York City has
one, thin and greasy like a mobster's backstory -- or
a slice of pepperoni pie. It is extremely loud,
somewhat angry and might speak an unfamiliar language.
The city's melting pot helps define it, along with the
swagger that comes with being a world-class
destination, a town that offers incomparable choice
and opportunity.

Austin, Texas, has one too. It is big. Like, hugely
big, and brags about its live music and smoked
brisket, while sipping Lone Star Beer and worshipping
Texas Longhorn football.

Raleigh?

Bless its heart.

I'm talking about soul: those bits, pieces and
intangibles that help define a city to the outside
world and create some cohesiveness within it. For all
its domination on lists of best places to live,
Raleigh lacks a little something in the Department of
Soul.

City soul isn't easily definable. But to me, it's a
shared attitude, a community image and a singular
style, smooshed together and bound with emotion.
Memphis and Boston have soul. Durham, embracing its
industrial past while resuscitating downtown, has
plenty.

In Raleigh, you have to search a little harder.

One hand is filled with smarty-pants, people with
layers of advanced degrees who tinker with our future
medicines and technology. The other holds bureaucrats
who lack the charisma to throw a decent party for the
Stanley Cup-champion Carolina Hurricanes. Juggle in
some rappers and artists, some basketball, barbecue
and suburbia, and you end up with a pleasant place to
raise babies, but not a particularly soulful one.

Raleigh is a growing city, working to refashion itself
for 21st-century eyes. Divided geographically between
the old, inside-the-Beltline Raleigh, and the newer,
more sparkly version on the outside, the city's
distinct parts have led to some image-wrestling. What
soul it has is in flux, with fights over public art
and the future of Dorothea Dix hospital mingling with
the promise of a more complete Outer Beltline, new
convention center and a reinvigorated main street.

So the soul it nurtures today most likely will not be
the soul we're talking about in 10 years.

But we need to start somewhere.

****

Sidebar: Durham and Chapel Hill have soul

Raleigh may have more people than any other city in
the Triangle, but it also has less soul. A quick take
on its local counterparts in the soul business: 

Durham: A gritty, yet up-and-coming city, Durham has a
bit of an image problem when it comes to crime-related
issues. But from the Durham Bulls to its arts scene to
Duke University, it has an identity, and the people
who live there have an emotional attachment to the
city. 

Chapel Hill: This town revolves around the university.
A classic college town, it invokes a liberal,
feel-good vibe that (like it or not) forms the basis
for its soul. Chapel Hill people tend to love Chapel
Hill, forming an extraordinary attachment to their
community. 

****

A 'sleepy' city

For some perspective from a town that sops its soul
with a biscuit, I called Louis Black, editor of the
Austin Chronicle, an alternative newsweekly. Black
moved to Austin in 1976. Thirty years ago, the capital
of Texas was a "sleepy little city." It ended up on a
lot of lists of most inexpensive places to live. It
was easy to get around.

Now it's bigger, it has more traffic. City leaders
have fought over growth. Home to computer-maker Dell
Inc., the Austin area is a techie hub.

Sound familiar?

I've never been to Austin, but I have known people who
lived there, and every one of them loved it. It's not
too big, not too small, filled with nightlife and good
food. The metro area contains about 1.4 million
people, and the city bills itself as the "Live Music
Capital of the World."

For all that's good about Austin, though, Black says
there's a running joke among old-timers: How many
Austin residents does it take to screw in a light
bulb?

One. Everyone else reminisces about how good it used
to be.

It seems like everyone believes the city was at its
most soulful the day they arrived, Black says, only to
see it dissipate. He disagrees.

More people have moved to town, and the creative class
is bigger than ever. More people are making money
doing what they love to do.

"I think the soul is in very good shape," he says.

Austin's soul has changed as the city has grown.
Because Raleigh is growing so quickly, I ask him for
advice as city leaders and residents work on
transforming downtown.

"Don't get funky confused with soul. Just because at
one point you could get warehouse space for next to
nothing and now everything costs a lot, that's not
necessarily soul."

I hope that's good news for Raleigh, where cheap
warehouse space was snapped up long ago, and funky
public arts projects routinely hit the skids.

A city's soul, Black says, is defined by its people
and how they deal with each other. In Austin, this
means you can go to a party and mingle with
representatives of every walk of life.

"There's a lot of cross-pollination in hanging out,"
he says.

Perhaps the city of Raleigh should hire a party
planner.

City of friendliness

I have a theory about Raleigh's soul. The
small-and-friendly city of 50 years ago was filled
mostly with people who grew up nearby. It has since
transformed into a transplant stew. It seems nearly
everyone is from somewhere else (I'm from Missouri)
and brings with them their ideas, culture and favorite
chain restaurant. To make everyone feel at home,
pretty soon there's something for everybody
everywhere, and a lot of the sticking-togetherness is
lost.

That's not to say that Raleigh has lost its
friendliness.

If strangers' interpersonal dealings were the only
criteria for defining a city's soul, Raleigh would be
the "City of Head-nodders." A friendly place filled
with friendly people who will acknowledge each other's
presence on the sidewalk, Raleigh's friendliness puts
places like NYC to shame.

Friendliness is definitely soulful. Maybe we just need
to market it better.

After all, New York City has a genius-level slogan:
"The Big Apple." Austin has its motto, too.

Raleigh is "The City of Oaks." Contrast that with
Durham's bold statement, "The Bull City," and Raleigh
sounds like a good place to take a nap.

I spoke with Mayor Charles Meeker about the idea that
perhaps the roots of Raleigh's residents are too
far-flung to create togetherness. He disagrees. He
says the geographic diversity of its residents'
hometowns is an attribute.

When asked about Raleigh's soul, he describes a young,
energetic town, one that is interested in technology
and entertainment. It's also a town where its
residents are focused on individual achievement.
People work hard in Raleigh.

We talked about the changes happening downtown, about
the new restaurants and nightlife. He hopes an
inviting downtown will draw in people from all over
the city, where they can interact and get to know one
another.

Not a bad idea, really. Maybe we can throw one of
those Austin parties to introduce everyone.

After the interview I hit the Internet and come across
a news release for the new Raleigh Convention Center.
In making an announcement about a major convention
coming to the new center in 2009, the mayor is quoted:
"Raleigh has always ranked highly as a great place to
live and work. Now we're also a great place to host a
meeting."

I hope the convention center is a success, that people
come to Raleigh and spend money and enjoy themselves.
But I know that every time I attend a meeting, it
kills a tiny bit of my soul.

Many souls

With all the academics in our area, I figure calling
one would be a good idea. So I find Roberto G.
Quercia, associate professor of city and regional
planning and a faculty fellow at the Center for Urban
and Regional Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill.

He teaches courses on houses and housing finance. I
ask him: Does Raleigh have a soul?

"I think Raleigh, as many cities, has many souls," he
says.

Quercia uses New York City as an example. Manhattan is
different from Brooklyn or Long Island. In a city,
there are as many souls as neighborhoods. So
Fayetteville Street is different from the Cameron
Village area and North Raleigh.

We agree that Raleigh is in the midst of a change, one
that will affect the city's soul. The fight over
public art is a good example. While some hoped Raleigh
would install a large, multicolored piece by a
world-famous modern artist, others simply wanted to
find a nice spot for the statue of Sir Walter Raleigh.

"I think souls change over time," Quercia says. The
image one has of another city -- San Francisco, maybe
-- has more to do with location and history than with
what the city offers in a particular time and space.

I ask him what defines the image of Raleigh on a
national scale. "The short answer to that is: I'm not
sure," he says. "But I can give you a guess."

Raleigh is known for being attractive to business. It
has quality schools and the Carolina Hurricanes.

True. These are important aspects for image. If we
could tie them together with some more attitude and
style, maybe we'll be on to something.

Our downtown of the future might be part of that
package. I ask Quercia if all this disagreement about
the direction in which its headed can affect what soul
is already here.

It can, he says. But cities are resilient.

A city's buildings are fixed in stone. Its character
and soul are not.

I hope Raleigh becomes the kind of city with an
identity that people instantly recognize and a soul
they can feel. The kind of place where strangers on
the sidewalk still nod to each other, even though it
might seem like too big a city for that. A place where
even though its people might be from other parts of
the world, it doesn't feel like it. A place where
those strangers feel as if they must be in Raleigh,
North Carolina, and nowhere else in the world.

Quercia's remarks give me some confidence that Raleigh
will find its true soul. No matter what shape downtown
takes, or even if we sprout enough sprawl to build a
third beltline.

****