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I've lived in the Raleigh area for a little over 20 years now and really like it. Craig and John have already covered the Durham area and the rural area outside of Chapel Hill. I live in Cary, a suburb on the southwest side of Raleigh. It is the fastest growing suburb, but all the suburbs around Raleigh in Wake County are just exploding with newcomers since the area is such a nice place to live. Cary often gets mentioned in a lot of national press because it has a very low crime rate for its size, has a lot of ammenities, etc., but other hot growth areas in the county are south of Raleigh, the northeast corner toward Wake Forest, and east out toward Johnston County. The only real downside to the area is that it is growing so fast that the roads and school systems are struggling a little to keep up. (Cary has grown from 45,000 to over 100,000 in under 10 years and is actually larger now than Chapel Hill.) Traffic can be a problem at rush hour depending on where you live and where you are trying to get to work.
Essentially the whole area of The Triangle (Raleigh - Durham- Chapel Hill) is growing together into a good sized metro area, with the pace accelerating. The cities and counties have finally realized that they need to start to work together to plan regionally for the continued growth.
Given all that, though, there are many nice neighborhoods to live in and you can either go for city life, suburban life, rural life, etc. depending on where and/or how far out you want to live relative to where you would work. Housing prices are climbing, but that is all relative...a lot more than some parts of the country, but a lot less than others (CA, NJ, NY, etc.)
What is nice is that you get all four seasons, but winters are not too bad. You are about 2 hours from the coast and 4 hours from the mountains. If you are into college sports, it is a great area with all the local colleges. If you like hockey, you can enjoy about the best prices in the NHL to watch our first place Carolina Hurricanes. :-)
The one Saab dealer in Raleigh is on the northeast side of town, but I have usually used Swedish Imports out between Durham and Chapel Hill since that is closer to where I work. Swedish Imports is an independent shop that works on Saab and Volvo, but they are an authorized Saab service center and have a business relationship with O'Neal Saab in Raleigh.
Mark
Mark
posted by 129.33.49...
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