(pub) 1969 regional plan for Triangle
As seen at Durham Central library, available online at digital.ncdcr.gov/Documents/Detail/research-triangle-regi...
Research Triangle Park was established with the expectation that adding tens of thousands of new jobs in industries like computing and biology was going to create a major city from the Triangle's three small cities. In that sense, the Triangle is one of America's most successful experiments in place-based industrial policy.
The state chose a site on soil ill-suited for farming – within the Deep River Triassic Basin, where soil "does not readily transmit or soak up water." Therefore, it was especially critical to plan for "urban utilities" (drinking water, sewage pipes, and surface stormwater drainage), along with roads and parks. They foresaw a future metropolitan area with 1.14 million residents – three times larger than the 448,000 who lived in these four counties (Wake, Durham, Orange, and Chatham) in 1970. The Triangle surpassed the 1.14 million mark by the year 2000.
Falls Lake, Jordan Lake, Little River Lake, Crabtree Lake, the Neuse River Greenway, and Eno River State Park all seem like fixed features of the landscape, but at this time they were all just ideas on a map meant to serve residents generations away.
Growth then was expected to be more symmetrical than it ended up being; as recently as 1950, Durham was a larger city than Raleigh. Western Wake County's growth was also a surprise, though it was only supercharged after Cary opened its own water treatment plan near Jordan Lake in 1993.
Sometimes, the Triangle's growth can seem helter-skelter -- but in reality, many of today's public services are the fruits of decades-old plans. Today's public officials might also want to take a look decades into the future to see how they can support the further transformation of the region into a place that works with its natural setting.
(pub) 1969 regional plan for Triangle
As seen at Durham Central library, available online at digital.ncdcr.gov/Documents/Detail/research-triangle-regi...
Research Triangle Park was established with the expectation that adding tens of thousands of new jobs in industries like computing and biology was going to create a major city from the Triangle's three small cities. In that sense, the Triangle is one of America's most successful experiments in place-based industrial policy.
The state chose a site on soil ill-suited for farming – within the Deep River Triassic Basin, where soil "does not readily transmit or soak up water." Therefore, it was especially critical to plan for "urban utilities" (drinking water, sewage pipes, and surface stormwater drainage), along with roads and parks. They foresaw a future metropolitan area with 1.14 million residents – three times larger than the 448,000 who lived in these four counties (Wake, Durham, Orange, and Chatham) in 1970. The Triangle surpassed the 1.14 million mark by the year 2000.
Falls Lake, Jordan Lake, Little River Lake, Crabtree Lake, the Neuse River Greenway, and Eno River State Park all seem like fixed features of the landscape, but at this time they were all just ideas on a map meant to serve residents generations away.
Growth then was expected to be more symmetrical than it ended up being; as recently as 1950, Durham was a larger city than Raleigh. Western Wake County's growth was also a surprise, though it was only supercharged after Cary opened its own water treatment plan near Jordan Lake in 1993.
Sometimes, the Triangle's growth can seem helter-skelter -- but in reality, many of today's public services are the fruits of decades-old plans. Today's public officials might also want to take a look decades into the future to see how they can support the further transformation of the region into a place that works with its natural setting.