My husband’s employer offered him a better job in Raleigh four years ago. Eight months pregnant with our first child, I quit my job in Atlanta so we could move to North Carolina.
I have liked most places I’ve lived, including Atlanta, Aspen, CO, Wilmington NC, and Richmond VA. Since I grew up in a small town thirty miles away from Raleigh and my husband went to college here, we adjusted fairly quickly. Having kids made it easy to make new friends and we picked up again with old ones. My brother and his family also live in town. My mother is two hours away.
My husband and I had reservations about raising our children in a larger city than the ones where we grew up. We are both nostalgic about coming of age in small towns. Around age seven, we each had the freedom to roam, heading home only when the lightning bugs came out. We had friends of all ages and walks of life, not just those in our class at school.
I think we’ve struck a balance here. We live in an in-town neighborhood called Five Points near a woodsy park called Fallon Park. It is inside Raleigh’s I-440 perimeter or what people here call the “beltline.” I love taking the kids, now ages three and four, for hikes through the woods at the park and wading in the stream. I jog or take the kids biking on the Greenway, part of Raleigh’s fifty-six acres of trails that come close to our house. We can walk to the Rialto movie theatre, restaurants, and shops nearby.
But there is access to so much more when we want it. Our quiet neighborhood is only a speck under the umbrella that is considered the Triangle area, which includes Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, and now Cary. We like it here for the same reasons the area earns top marks on “best places” and newcomer lists: a thriving arts scene, good schools, great weather, and proximity to the mountains and the beach.
