TCBITW will be eleven this summer.

SHUT UP.

-th, here, echoing what -ch and smonster and Bev have to say.

I have almost a complete ignorance of Rocky Mount and Greenville. Darth, if he still posted here, grew up in Rocky Mount, IIRC. Went to a conference in Greenville once, and spent most of my free time in the local Target, if that tells you anything. I would def. recommend Raleigh over Greenville.

As an alum of UNC-Chapel Hill, I do tend to be biased in favor of it.

I would put the commute from Chapel Hill-Carrboro to Greensboro at about 45 minutes to an hour. When I lived on the west side of Carrboro, my roommate commuted to UNC-G every day and made it in 45 minutes. But he also got three speeding tickets in a year, so YMliterallyMV.

And yes, we would all definitely play with you if you moved to the area, AND WE COULD USE ANOTHER AMY, YES.

every individual town has a really, really different feel to it. There's really no "I'm an hour away from the town I really want to live in and that's close enough" -- if you're an hour away, it's a completely different life.

Oh, yeah. And we have fun little towns to explore, too, like Hillsborough and Pittsboro.

Even Carrboro and Chapel Hill, which are a ten-minute *walk* away from each other have very, very different vibes.

True true.

AMYS UNITE. Or something.

Wait, what's in Greensboro? Also, I guess at least one school would have to take me, right? ::puppy eyes::

TCBITW will be eleven this summer. Totally a tween.

DOES NOT COMPUTE. SYSTEM FAILURE IMMINENT.

And while Duke may be pricey as a school, living there is less pricey than Chapel Hill/Carrboro in many cases, and the two towns are totally within commuting distance. Most of my friends who own live in Durham, regardless of whether they work/go to school in Durham or Chapel Hill. And Durham is a fun town.

Wait, what's in Greensboro?

UNC-Greensboro.

You know... we have colleges in Seattle too.

::blinks innocently::

Ah, okay. Sorry, between lack of caffeine and deadline pressure, I'm a little ditzy today. And really should not be procrastinating by thinking about nice places to live with excellent people I could play with in person.

For what it's worth, UNC-Greensboro is only about an hour or so (or has the drive time gone up in the past few years?) from Chapel Hill/Carrboro.

You haven't lived here since they finished the interstate and upped the speed limits, dude! I'd say more like 35 minutes to CH, 45 to Durham.

I was also going to recommend UNCG if UNC-CH doesn't turn out to be an option. It's one of the smaller and more, hmm, college-y feeling UNC system schools, and I've known a lot of people who have done edu-related degrees there and had good experiences. Back in the day, it used to be the top-of-the-line women's school in the system, and when they integrated the sexes system-wide, they made UNCG into a liberal-arts focused school (as opposed to the various tech schools, for example).

Wake County is also respected

Not any more, they're not. The whole "getting rid of desegregation" thing is really hurting them reputation-wise, and (maybe more to the point) nobody has any idea what's going to be going on next year in any given school zone.

Durham schools run the gamut from among the best to really not so good. There's a county-wide system of magnet schools at all levels (and they tend to be very good and much loved. There are great non-magnet schools because of a lot of parent and neighborhood involvement. And there are schools where people in the particular neighborhood really, really want to get their kids into the magnets. Durham is urban and minority-majority with a stupid wide income range, and having some excellent schools and some bad ones comes with that. (See smonster's comment about housing prices in Durham vs. Chapel Hill.)

Oh, dear lord I has opinions.