Thursday, February 12, 2009

Raleigh Branded with an "R"?

Two press releases went out today and I saw them both in the Triangle Business Journal:

1)  The Downtown Raleigh Alliance has launched a new campaign, "You R Here"

2)  There is a new bus line called the "R-line" that will circle downtown Raleigh.

Really?  Is this a planned coincidence? 

I will have to wait to see the campaign before I judge, I guess, but off the top of my head "You R Here" doesn't say anything special about Raleigh. It just uses the first letter of our capital city. 

But what I really wanted to rant about was that the R-line, according to the press release, WILL NOT go to Cameron Village!  This I cannot believe.  Mostly because every single person who either lives or wants to live downtown complains about the lack of a grocery store downtown. With Capital City Grocery out of business, even the one little bus won't go to the one place, one mile away, that has a Harris Teeter and Fresh Market.  Cameron Village. 

The city's press release seems to focus on taking conventioneers to restaurants. What about shops? Cameron Village is historic.  It is one mile away.  One mile.  Until downtown gets a little more going on, Cameron Village has so much to offer to a conventioneer.  I really cannot believe it is not being promoted as part of downtown. Am I crazy?