And America’s Best City is …. Raleigh!
So says Businessweek.com. Charlotte came in 20th, which most cities would envy. What does it mean? As I’ve been writing for years, Raleigh began to pass Charlotte by in these national ranking surveys a few years back. Ten years ago, Charlotte was the hot and upcoming new Southern thing. Now Raleigh is.
That’s probably because on most quality of life indicators, Raleigh ranks slightly higher than Charlotte. And because Raleigh is up and coming and these ranking schemes like to find the new hot thing.
Still, I wonder if Raleigh will ever achieve that seat in the hip top ten nationally that Charlotte has craved for so long. I mean to be automatically included on the mental list with Austin, Phoenix, Sacramento and places like that. I’ve long said to watch Raleigh. It focused on targeted business recruitment over the last two decades while Charlotte focused on uptown trinkets. That focus, for Raleigh, is paying off.
