Resetting Raleigh
Mayor Nancy McFarlane’s decision not to run again means Raleigh politics will get a reset this year. It promises to be rough and wrenching.
Again, as last time, we’ll have racial polarization. Again, as for the last 50 years, we’ll have Neighborhoods vs. Developers. And, this time, we may have a generational divide. Call it the Old Farts vs. the New Kids.
Leigh Tauss has written about this split in IndyWeek: “Raleigh Is a Young City Governed by a Not-So-Young Council. This Year’s Election Could Change That.” Dr. Michael Bitzer of Catawba College told the Institute of Political Leadership last weekend that the fastest-growing cohort of voters today is the under-40s: Millennials and Generation Z. That’s especially the case in Raleigh.
How do these young voters see the Raleigh elections? One of them sent me the thoughts below. They’re well worth sharing:
I have a lot of problems with Mayor McFarlane’s tenure. Our affordable housing crisis remains entirely unaddressed, much of Southeast Raleigh still lacks the baseline of service and services that the rest of us can count on, and her unwillingness to stand up to a backwards NCGA rubbed me the wrong way. But I grew to respect her a lot more this term because of the council members she was dealing with. Raleigh has always been a city with abnormal local politics but it has gotten completely off the rails these past few years.
There is an almost Trumpian cult of personality around certain council members, and they’ve developed the thin skin, toxic disregard for facts, and disrespect for dissent to match it. The way they treat city staff has been well documented. They seem to spend more of their time gossiping and attacking anyone they disagree with on Facebook than they possibly could on any real council work. If you’re in their inner circle they will try and move heaven and earth to get what you want. If not, they’ll attack or (worse) ignore you. That’s not how you represent people.
To me at least, they don’t seem particularly interested in the good of the city, or even their own districts, as a whole. They stand with a very small portion of Raleigh’s people who are either unaware or dismissive of the needs of others. It’s how they’re able to oppose a grocery store for environmental reasons one day, then try to divert sewer lines through wetlands the next. It’s how they can oppose new senior-living facilities (in areas properly zoned for them) because ambulances are too noisy.
The city is increasingly dominated by a small group of vocal interests hell-bent on stopping virtually anything out concern for ‘neighborhoods.’ And by neighborhoods, they of course mean their neighborhoods exclusively, the almost all-white upper and upper-middle class areas generally north of Wade Ave and west of Capital.
Full disclosure: These are my neighborhoods. But to expend so much energy and vitriol on a single slice of the city threatens the growth that has put us in such an enviable spot. And that’s where this crowd is such a problem. I get the same tinge of pain whenever I see new development taking away open space or a business I used to love, but I’ve come to accept the undeniable fact that our city is changing.
Cities are not static entities. As much as we may love Colonial Williamsburg, it’s unrealistic to expect that in the real world. Cities change, and that change is driven by one of two things: Growth, or contraction. Growth hurts and has serious challenges but contraction hurts more. It means you’re losing jobs, people, opportunity, hope. Raleigh is blessed to have those things in abundance, especially when compared to other places across the state.
Growth needs to be checked and managed. It has to be planned, beneficial to all, and, yes, there are undeniably aspects of Raleigh that need preservation. But to take the stance against it in the manner our council has done is dangerous. It doesn’t check growth, it just shoehorns the negative effects on to our most vulnerable people. They do their constituents a disservice by not addressing the real problems we face.
Their goal is to stop Raleigh from growing. Have they really considered what happens when they get their wish?
The worst thing Mayor McFarlane may have ever done was to step down now, opening the door for one of this group to take the helm of the city. They need to be stood up to, or we risk losing what makes Raleigh such an attractive place.
If that happens, y’all can come visit me in Durham.
Resetting Raleigh
Mayor Nancy McFarlane’s decision not to run again means Raleigh politics will get a reset this year. It promises to be rough and wrenching.
Again, as last time, we’ll have racial polarization. Again, as for the last 50 years, we’ll have Neighborhoods vs. Developers. And, this time, we may have a generational divide. Call it the Old Farts vs. the New Kids.
Leigh Tauss has written about this split in IndyWeek: “Raleigh Is a Young City Governed by a Not-So-Young Council. This Year’s Election Could Change That.” Dr. Michael Bitzer of Catawba College told the Institute of Political Leadership last weekend that the fastest-growing cohort of voters today is the under-40s: Millennials and Generation Z. That’s especially the case in Raleigh.
How do these young voters see the Raleigh elections? One of them sent me the thoughts below. They’re well worth sharing:
I have a lot of problems with Mayor McFarlane’s tenure. Our affordable housing crisis remains entirely unaddressed, much of Southeast Raleigh still lacks the baseline of service and services that the rest of us can count on, and her unwillingness to stand up to a backwards NCGA rubbed me the wrong way. But I grew to respect her a lot more this term because of the council members she was dealing with. Raleigh has always been a city with abnormal local politics but it has gotten completely off the rails these past few years.
There is an almost Trumpian cult of personality around certain council members, and they’ve developed the thin skin, toxic disregard for facts, and disrespect for dissent to match it. The way they treat city staff has been well documented. They seem to spend more of their time gossiping and attacking anyone they disagree with on Facebook than they possibly could on any real council work. If you’re in their inner circle they will try and move heaven and earth to get what you want. If not, they’ll attack or (worse) ignore you. That’s not how you represent people.
To me at least, they don’t seem particularly interested in the good of the city, or even their own districts, as a whole. They stand with a very small portion of Raleigh’s people who are either unaware or dismissive of the needs of others. It’s how they’re able to oppose a grocery store for environmental reasons one day, then try to divert sewer lines through wetlands the next. It’s how they can oppose new senior-living facilities (in areas properly zoned for them) because ambulances are too noisy.
The city is increasingly dominated by a small group of vocal interests hell-bent on stopping virtually anything out concern for ‘neighborhoods.’ And by neighborhoods, they of course mean their neighborhoods exclusively, the almost all-white upper and upper-middle class areas generally north of Wade Ave and west of Capital.
Full disclosure: These are my neighborhoods. But to expend so much energy and vitriol on a single slice of the city threatens the growth that has put us in such an enviable spot. And that’s where this crowd is such a problem. I get the same tinge of pain whenever I see new development taking away open space or a business I used to love, but I’ve come to accept the undeniable fact that our city is changing.
Cities are not static entities. As much as we may love Colonial Williamsburg, it’s unrealistic to expect that in the real world. Cities change, and that change is driven by one of two things: Growth, or contraction. Growth hurts and has serious challenges but contraction hurts more. It means you’re losing jobs, people, opportunity, hope. Raleigh is blessed to have those things in abundance, especially when compared to other places across the state.
Growth needs to be checked and managed. It has to be planned, beneficial to all, and, yes, there are undeniably aspects of Raleigh that need preservation. But to take the stance against it in the manner our council has done is dangerous. It doesn’t check growth, it just shoehorns the negative effects on to our most vulnerable people. They do their constituents a disservice by not addressing the real problems we face.
Their goal is to stop Raleigh from growing. Have they really considered what happens when they get their wish?
The worst thing Mayor McFarlane may have ever done was to step down now, opening the door for one of this group to take the helm of the city. They need to be stood up to, or we risk losing what makes Raleigh such an attractive place.
If that happens, y’all can come visit me in Durham.