The Research Triangle. William M. Rohe

      Figure 1. Research Triangle metropolitan area (map by Peter Zambito).

      DISTINCTIVE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE RESEARCH TRIANGLE

      The Research Triangle is different from most other metropolitan areas in several interesting and important ways. It was not formed by the largely market-driven expansion of population and development from a single large central city, such as Boston, Philadelphia, Portland, Oregon, San Diego, and most other U.S. metropolitan areas. Rather, the Research Triangle's growth is largely the result of a public and private planned research park and related investments in transportation infrastructure. There has been a level of intentionality in the development of the Research Triangle that surpasses that of other metropolitan areas.

      The Research Triangle's key historical event was the creation of the Research Triangle Park (RTP) on four thousand acres of “scrub pine and opossums” located between the communities of Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill—each town home to a major research university. This planned intervention was primarily responsible for the area's rapid growth and melding the surrounding towns into a metropolitan area. The RTP is currently home to 145 businesses and other organizations with a total of thirty-nine thousand employees. Major businesses include IBM, GlaxoSmith-Kline, Cisco Systems, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. The park is also home to Research Triangle Institute International (RTI), the nation's second largest independent nonprofit research organization. The local importance of the RTP is underscored by the use of the name “the Research Triangle” to refer to the area. Most other metros are named after their dominant city such as the Portland metro or Chicagoland.

      This book explores the circumstances and people behind the creation of the RTP and its role in the region's physical and social development. It addresses such questions as: What led to the RTP's creation? What contributed to its success? How has it shaped the region? And what role does it play in the lives of people who live in the metropolitan area?

      Another distinct feature of this metropolitan area is that it is composed of distinct cities and towns with very different histories, economies, and personalities. Among the larger cities, Raleigh is the oldest with an estimated 2009 population of approximately 405,800 residents.² Created to be the state capital in 1792, it has a reputation as a fairly conservative community populated by government bureaucrats, business people, and RTP employees. Durham, founded in 1869, grew up around a train station and thrived on cigarette manufacturing and textile mills. Its estimated 2009 population was approximately 229,200. With the largest black and Hispanic communities among the Triangle's cities and towns, Durham has a reputation, despite Duke University's presence, as a gritty, working-class community. Chapel Hill, with an estimated 2009 population of approximately 53,500, is the smallest of the three communities that form the corners of the Research Triangle. The town, dating back to the founding of the University of North Carolina in 1793, is known as a liberal college town. Beyond these three communities there are others in the region including the town of Cary, which grew from a population of 1,400 in 1950 to an estimated 136,600 in 2009.

      This book describes the diverse histories and characteristics of the area's constituent communities, as well as the benefits and the challenges posed by that diversity. It asks, to what extent do the residents experience and identify with the region as a whole or only with their own individual towns? How can the region grow and develop while holding onto its distinctive attributes, such as each town's unique personality, its lush natural environment, and easy access to employment, recreation, shopping, and cultural opportunities?

      The Research Triangle area's spatial structure is also unlike that of many other metro areas. Its geographic center is a very low-density research and development park, not a diverse, high-density city center. Visitors to the area who set out to see the acclaimed Research Triangle Park often return disappointed because very little can be seen from the main roads. Driving through the RTP is more akin to driving through a state park. The roads are lined with loblolly pines and occasional signs announcing the entrance to IBM, GlaxoSmithKline, or other global corporations and research and development facilities.

      Adding to the area's distinctive spatial structure is the very low density of its towns and cities. Single-family homes, often on relatively large lots, are the dominant form of residential development. Moreover, these homes have been relatively affordable compared to many metro areas. Each of the towns and cities has a downtown commercial core, but until very recently these cores have contained very little in the way of multifamily housing. The multifamily housing that does exist tends to be recent construction built in peripheral areas.

      This pattern of dispersed, low-density development has certainly contributed to the area's rural and small town ambiance and appeal. However, as the region has continued to grow, it has resisted efforts to achieve more sustainable compact development and to expand public transit. The ongoing effort to build a light rail system, for example, was stalled when the projected ridership could not justify the costs. Efforts are being made to increase development densities around the proposed transit stops.

      This book explores how the historically dispersed, low-density development impacts the lives of current residents and inhibits the area's ability to achieve a more sustainable twenty-first-century development pattern. It also offers suggestions on what needs to be done to change this pattern.

      The Research Triangle is more immersed in the knowledge-based economy than most metropolitan areas. The percentage of people holding graduate degrees is one of the highest in the country.³ The area's share of the workforce in knowledge-based occupations is also among the highest.⁴ A recent ranking of the fifty-five largest metropolitan areas listed the Raleigh-Cary metro area as the most educated based on factors such as the number of residents with college and advanced degrees. Clearly, this has much to do with the presence of three major research universities and other colleges in the area. Together, Duke University, North Carolina State University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill confer over 750 Ph.D. and 2,500 master's degrees per year. Those universities have been crucial to the area's economic success. In recent years academicians-turned-entrepreneurs have launched highly successful local businesses; some hold patents related to the results of their research. Accordingly, the universities are paying more attention to the commercialization of new discoveries and have developed a variety of relationships with area businesses. This book presents the story of how the economy has evolved in recent years and the roles that several publicly-supported economic development organizations played in that evolution.

      Finally, compared to many U.S. metropolitan areas, the Research Triangle is relatively young and rapidly growing. Much of its development history is yet to be written. The Research Triangle area has no limiting geographic features such as mountains or large bodies of water. Moreover, the area's knowledge-based economy and high quality of life positions it well for future growth. Projections show the region growing by almost one million people over the next twenty years.⁵ But this future is dependent on how the region handles that growth. Will it lead to severe traffic congestion and the degradation of the natural environment, or can it avoid typical problems of urban sprawl? The key to success is to further develop regional cooperation in the area. This book explores the extent to which the Research Triangle area is fully integrated as a region, what stage of regionalism it has reached, what needs to be done to further integrate the region, and the major obstacles to Research Triangle metropolitan cooperation.

      DEFINING THE RESEARCH TRIANGLE METRO

      Building on the word metropolis, metropolitan area refers to a large important city (or cities), along with contiguous areas functionally linked to it (or them) by employment or commuting