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Raleigh - The City of the Future

By Marshall Brain

With the new civic center opening in Raleigh, there is a big push to court convention visitors. But here's a question: Is there a good reason for conference organizers to pick Raleigh as the destination city? Think about the cities we compete with:

• Atlanta, GA is the biggest city in the Southeast, featuring the world's largest aquarium, amusement parks, museums, Stone Mountain, etc.

• Baltimore, MD has the beautiful and vibrant Inner Harbor

• Charlotte, NC is North Carolina's business and banking hub and is centrally located less than 4 hours by car away from Atlanta, GA, Columbia, SC, Knoxville, TN, and Raleigh, NC

• Washington, DC has hundreds of museums and attractions and world-wide name recognition.

In order to compete, Raleigh needs something that will grab people's attention and make visitors WANT to come to Raleigh. When people think of Raleigh, something unique has to come to mind.

In other words, Raleigh needs a theme. And it needs to be an exciting, interesting theme. For Las Vegas, it is gambling. For Orlando, it's amusement parks. For Nashville, it's music. What is Raleigh's theme?

This is my proposal: Raleigh - the City of the Future.

Three advantages to the proposed theme:

1. It is interesting and immediately sparks curiosity and thought

2. It fires up the imagination

3. It is within our grasp. We have the basics, and they act as a credible starting point. For example, we have RTP, several big research universities that invent future technologies, a carbon-free nuclear power plant supplying the city's energy needs, and so on. We simply add to this starting point to make the theme real.

There are three things we know for sure about the City of the Future. First, it will have cool, interesting things to do. Second, it will have a transportation system that allows people to easily get to all the different attractions no matter where they are located in the city. Third, it will eliminate the big problems that plague U.S. cities today: traffic jams, pollution, etc.

The goal of this web site is to present ideas for the City of the Future. Click on the labels in the left-hand column to explore the different ideas.

Thank you for stopping by today. Please tell your friends about the City of the Future!