Charlotte vs Raleigh: The Ultimate Comparison!

For my Charlotte vs Raleigh video, I went to Charlotte last week to gather information, and I’ll admit I expected to dislike it. I’ve been to Charlotte on various occasions… to drop my son off at college, to visit the only Ikea in the state of North Carolina. To go to Lake Norman for vacation and to visit the totally incredible Renaissance Festival.

But to be honest, even though Raleigh arguably does have fewer attractions to offer, I had a pretty big “Raleigh is better than Charlotte” chip on my shoulder.

Character: Raleigh vs Charlotte

I was expecting traffic, congestion, a vast suburban sprawl twice the size of Raleigh. And those things are true. But Charlotte surprised me.

As I researched and talked to people in Charlotte I began to think that Charlotte might even be someplace I would want to move. I also learned of some pretty scary negatives that would definitely impact my relocation plans, but we will get to that soon.

Today I’m going to talk about the overall character and feel of each city, the amenities they each offer, their proximity within the state and how that affects lifestyle in each city, transportation, their downtown districts, and housing.

Big City Vibes vs Small Town Vibes

As a general rule of thumb, Charlotte has more of the feel of a big city, and Raleigh has more of the feel of a small town.

Some of that is due to the way the cities were originally laid out and the plans the early founders had for each city. While Charlotte has wide streets and was designed around plans for the tall buildings necessary to become a banking capital (which is what Charlotte set out to do from the beginning), Raleigh’s city growth was restricted by a 5 square plan, laid out in 1792.

Rather than planning for tall buildings, they happened by accident. Raleigh never wanted to be, or planned to be, a large city. Charlotte did. And you can still feel that vibe in each city. When Charlotte was planning for banks and tall buildings, Raleigh was building universities and attracting scientists. These things impact the feel of each place.

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Check out this video on What Locals Think of Raleigh, or this video comparison of Raleigh and Cary.

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The Triangle area has one of the highest numbers of colleges per capita in the US and this has a big effect on the local culture. Charlotte also has colleges and universities, but not as many for its size so the schools don’t have as much of an impact on everyday life.

Raleigh has more of a youthful and artistic vibe dominated by music, food and culture. Charlotte has more of the feel of a larger city where the culture is dominated by sports, Nascar, and banking.

Even when you look at the two major colleges in each city, UNC Charlotte and NC State, you can see the differences. Raleigh is primarily known for engineering, bioengineering and life sciences. These are more creative fields with more of a problem-solving type of mindset.

Charlotte is more dominated by management.

When you’re walking around Charlotte, you see a lot more management types walking around downtown than you do in Raleigh. Now I don’t know exactly how to quantify that, but you look at someone and think to yourself, “That’s a person that works in an office.” There just seemed to be more of them than there are in Raleigh.

Raleigh is more scientist and less banker. Now Raleigh is the state capital, so we definitely win the question of who’s got more politicians and lawyers. And you can draw your own conclusions about that.

But even having said that, I think one thing both cities seriously lack is a strong brand. Austin is weird. New York is the City that Never Sleeps. Chicago is the Windy City. But Raleigh and Charlotte….neither one has a strong brand. In a Charlotte vs Raleigh brand competition, I think they both lose.

We call Raleigh the city of Oaks, and while there are a lot of oak trees and it is very green here, that isn’t its personality. Charlotte is the Queen city, after Queen Charlotte, the city’s namesake. Which has nothing to do with the character of the city. In my opinion, neither Raleigh nor Charlotte know who they are yet.

I think we need a brand. Once we have that, both cities will become way cooler.

Size: Raleigh vs Charlotte

Believe it or not, a lot of people argue about which city is bigger.

You’d think that was an easy thing to figure out. The overall perception is that Charlotte is bigger than Raleigh. And that is true, but it’s also not true because it’s more complicated than it might seem.

The thing is, the cities are different and we have to use a measurement that applies to both. For the sake of clarity, we’re going to look at the Combined Statistical Area for each location and I’m going to explain what that includes so you know what we’re talking about.

MSA’s can change

It’s important to note that a metropolitan statistical area CAN be changed. These are areas identified by the census bureau as areas that have “a high degree of economic and social integration.”

Now I’m not saying that I’m aware of any upcoming changes, but I will say that the Triangle MLS, which is what we use in Raleigh, just last year joined with the Longleaf Pines MLS, which is down in the Fayetteville, Sanford and Pinehurst area. The reason they did this was because there is a significant overlap in where buyers are searching.

Parts of the Longleaf Pines MLS is only 35 minutes from downtown Raleigh. It is WAY cheaper to live down there, so understandably, we have many people moving from big cities that don’t blink an eye at a 45-60 minute commute to save $200,000 or more.

Will these areas eventually become part of the Raleigh MSA? I don’t know, but I just want you to truly understand when you look at Raleigh and Charlotte, it only makes sense to look at land mass combined with population because those are the things that determine what kinds of amenities and stores and jobs are available close to wherever you live in each city. So that’s what we’re going to do today.

Size and Population

The Charlotte MSA is a total of 6589 square miles with a population of 2,797,636. The Raleigh MSA is a total of 4766 square miles with a population of just over 2,079,687.

If they did decide to add those extra counties to the Raleigh MSA, it would probably be about the size of Charlotte’s MSA, maybe even bigger.

I think the population density of the county in which each city resides is the main thing that impacts the way each city feels. Wake County, which is home to Raleigh, is bigger with fewer people than Charlotte’s Mecklenburg County.

Wake’s population density is about 1300 people per square mile and in Charlotte there are about 2000 people per square mile in the county. The other big difference is that the suburbs around Raleigh really flow into the city as one. But the suburbs in Charlotte almost seem like an afterthought, they feel more disconnected, and the city dominates the county.

Amenities in Raleigh and Charlotte

In any Raleigh vs Charlotte comparison, the amenities each city offers is going to play a big role. In some categories, the larger city of Charlotte dominates, but not in every category.

Parks

Raleigh is way better when it comes to access and availability of parks. The Trust for Public Lands analyzes the greenspace available to residents by city. They ranked Raleigh #58 out of the 100 largest cities and Charlotte ranked 85 out of 100, with 100 being the lowest score.

It’s a little surprising that both cities scored so low, since Raleigh in particular is known for its large number of parks. But the way the rankings were done impacted those lower than expected scores.

Rankings are based on walkability of parks. Raleigh has TONS of parks, but generally you do have to get into your car and drive to them because things are more spread out than the cities that scored the highest which are very dense cities like Washington DC, New York, etc.

We can’t compete against that, but compared to each other, Charlotte scored half as well on investment and half as well on amenities as Raleigh did. And Charlotte scored only a quarter as well as Raleigh on access, which is the measurement of how far residents live from the closest park.

Charlotte simply does not have the sheer number of parks that Raleigh has in close proximity to most residents.

Sports

When it comes to sports, most people will agree that the Charlotte vs Raleigh comparison comes out in Charlotte’s favor. Charlotte has more professional teams than we do here in Raleigh. Charlotte has NFL, NBA, MLS, teams as well as NASCAR. Raleigh has an NHL hockey team, and college sports are extremely popular here, with the city competition between Duke, UNC and State being a big driver of local culture and events.

So, fine, Charlotte wins for the most professional sports and Raleigh residents have to drive 3 hours to watch a Panther’s game.

Where Charlotte really shines is in what I like to call “vacation amenities.”

Vacation amenities

Charlotte is home to Carowinds and Carolina Harbor, Great Wolf Lodge, US National Whitewater center, which arguably seems like it may be the coolest place in the world.

Raleigh can’t even come close to competing with these things. However, there are two points I want to make about picking a hometown that I think are really important to think through.

While we don’t have flashy amenities like Charlotte, there is something to be said about the micro community focused activities and events throughout the Raleigh area that might go unnoticed, but really play such a big part of our local culture and the ability for people to really connect with each other and form community bonds.

Community activities

If you’re in Raleigh you’re going to spend your time going to concerts at the many venues throughout the city. We’ve got the larger venues like Walnut Creek and DPAC, but there are tons of smaller venues as well. There really is something at every music level happening practically daily. And these are events where you might know the performers because they are part of the community. So you’re going to be enjoying music, visiting farmers markets, again, getting to know those people, or the many agritourism farms throughout the area.

And the parks really aren’t just greenspaces where you can get outside. Every town in the Triangle has classes and events that happen at the park and in the community centers. There are disc golf courses, pickle ball, stand up paddle boarding and classes where you can learn to throw pottery, learn metal smithing, be part of a community band or orchestra.

I feel like sometimes in the conversation about the big stuff that dominates Charlotte, the true value of the community focused activities get overlooked in Raleigh. In Raleigh we’ve got 20 community centers and Charlotte has 21. Remember, Charlotte has a much denser population than Raleigh and numerically it’s 25% larger. Raleigh seems to make a much bigger investment in the community amenities, and not as much in the “vacation amenities.” I guess whether you think this is a good thing or a bad thing is totally up to how you live your life and how you spend your time.

Where do you spend your time?

But this is something I want to know. If you live in Charlotte or you have lived there in the past, how often do you go to the big “vacation activities.’ Do you go to the water park every weekend during the summer or is that just something you do once a year or for a birthday party? Or maybe less frequently or not at all? Because there is another side to the vacation style amenities that comes up a lot when Raleigh starts talking about building these types of amenities. Traffic.

Traffic: Raleigh vs Charlotte

With all those amenities, and people visiting to enjoy them, comes traffic. Charlotte’s traffic is 3x as bad as Raleigh’s. Charlotte ranks 35th for traffic congestion in the US and 318 in the world. While Raleigh ranks 104 in the US and 619 in the world. So there is a cost to the amenities and we have to ask ourselves whether that cost is worth it.

Interestingly, Charlotte is the one city in North Carolina that has a public rail system. For whatever reason, this has failed to take the pressure off of traffic congestion in the city.

If you’re trying to choose between Raleigh and Charlotte, you have to think about how often you would use the amenities available and if they are worth it to you?

I know this is starting to sound like it might be a post that is slanted towards Raleigh and I know that half of you are thinking of course, she’s a Realtor and she’s trying to get business.

Wah wah wah.

But truthfully, I really am just telling you what I think. But where you decide to live really depends on what is important to YOU. However, I’m getting ready to tell you the one thing that could make me move to Charlotte. Location.

Location of Raleigh and Charlotte

And here is another one that really depends on what is important to you.

I grew up in South Florida and I know how often most people who live in Florida go to the beach. Almost never. You can never get that sand out of your car. But if I lived closer to the mountains, I’m pretty sure it would be a weekend event. Like all the time.

While I’m not a hiker or anything like that, I LOVE driving through beautiful countryside with the mountain scenery and stopping in every small town and going into all the shops and talking to the shop owners. Honestly that is my favorite thing in the world to do.

But it’s 2.5 hours to anything close to that in Raleigh. And it’s also 2 hours to the beach. And the drive to the beach is pretty ugly also…flat and scrubby.

You really start getting mountain views about an hour outside of Charlotte. That is a huge draw for me. If you’re more of a beach person, Raleigh might be better. Raleigh is far enough away to avoid hurricanes and close enough that you can make a day trip out of it. But if you prefer the mountains, Charlotte is the clear winner.

Downtown Raleigh vs. Uptown Charlotte

When comparing the two downtowns, Charlotte really wins out if you’re looking for something that actually feels like a city.

I’m not a city person at all. I grew up in the suburbs, and have spent almost no time in cities.

Crowds are not my thing, and honestly I’ve never been attracted to the vibe of a city.

I don’t know if it’s because I’m getting older (or maybe I just literally have never been to anything except small cities like Raleigh and just didn’t see the point in visiting larger cities), but when I got to Charlotte and started walking around the city, I immediately got what people like about cities.

Energy and Buzz in Charlotte

The energy was very cool and the buzz of so many people around doing so many things. And it was kind of fun stopping to talk to people with the camera and hear people’s stories.

I just love listening to people’s experiences and stories and you can get those in a city in a way you can’t in a suburb, just for sheer volume of people to talk to. It’s kind of why Humans of New York is such a fascinating page to follow….there’s just so much variety.

For sure, Charlotte beats Raleigh in this regard but again, how important that is to your decision about where to live, depends on how important access to a city is.

Because you don’t get this in Raleigh. For me, as long as I have a camera with me and can listen to people’s stories and share them, I really like having access to a city.

As far as bars and restaurants, I would personally rather focus on one or two good places where people know me, rather than finding a new place for every night. I don’t need that kind of variety. And when you boil it down, a city is really about how much variety you need. You can check out the different areas of Raleigh here.

Housing: Raleigh vs Charlotte

In Charlotte the median home price is $382,000 and in Raleigh it is $401,000. Months of supply are almost identical in Raleigh and Charlotte, which means it’s going to be about as difficult to purchase a home in one area as in the other. Take a look at Raleigh’s best neighborhoods here.

But Redfin does still calculate Raleigh as a more competitive market than Charlotte, although I will say that as I was gathering this data, I noticed that just about all the other cities in the North Carolina…the Triad, Wilmington, Fayetteville, Sanford all the small cities, are much more competitive than Raleigh and Charlotte. It should be really interesting to follow what happens with those.

You can take a look at Raleigh homes for sale here.