Moving to Cary or Raleigh North Carolina

I'm actually visiting family in Cary atm for vacation. I used to live here when I was younger 8 years back so I'll take a stab at this...

Cary is a great place to live. Raleigh/Cary area is one of the fastest developing areas in the nation, primarily due to IT (more specifically the Research Triangle Park area). However, social scene wise there isn't a whole lot to do here, just an expanding suburbs. You'll probably have to hit up Raleigh for that.

I think you'll love the area though. I too lived in Florida prior to NC (granted I was much younger than you when I lived in Cary). Overall weather is wonderful in NC.

Cary... North Carolina's Centralized Area for Relocated Yankees.

When I lived in NC I had a few friends that lived in Cary and although it's really not much more than another sprawling suburb it seemed nicer than most of the surrounding communities in general. There was a heavy emphasis on building duplexes and townhome style apartments and condos to keep up with the population growth that the area has experienced and Cary has some very nice ones to choose from. The typical demographic of the new folks moving to Cary also seemed to trend towards highly educated younger single professionals and childless couples which probably dictated so many townhome type developments - but there are still plenty of nicer single family homes to choose from if that is your preference.

The "downtown" area looks to have turned pretty dumpy over the years (compared to what it could be for a community with the resources of Cary, but I haven't been there in at least 5 years so who knows if things have been cleaned up at all) but I think most of that could be chalked up to the sprawling nature of most of the development in the RTP in general over the past few decades. But it's not like the "downtown" is an unsafe or altogether awful area... it's just sort of neglected in terms of investment and redevelopment opportunities. At least much of the old downtown area in Cary seemed to still be intact physically, along with the traditional grid pattern of the streets in a few older neighborhoods, so there is some potential for something of a traditional community.

I always thought Cary's real advantage (and what probably drove most of the recent growth) is its location between Raleigh and Chapel Hill and proximity to I-40 and the airport, as well as not being too far from I-95.