Stripped/Raleigh f/8 @ 1/160 sec

Posted 10 more images in the Whitaker Park set.

609 Wayne Drive/Raleigh f/8 @ 1/100 sec

The apartments I spent my first four-ish years in Raleigh at, Whitaker Park are halfway demolished as new $700,000 homes go up. Up and down Anderson Drive, on the other side of Fallon Park, several teardowns. Now, Pine Drive and Oxford look like they're next.

From the article:

Most supporters of teardowns cite increasing property values as a positive outcome. But experts say the impact on values of existing homes is not clear.

A study at the University of Illinois at Chicago found values of existing properties near a teardown dropped by as much as 24 percent following construction of a large new house in a village near Chicago.

Building more valuable homes does boost the property tax base and can also benefit other property values by making a location more desirable, said James W. Hughes, dean of the school of planning and public policy at Rutgers University.

But a teardown also could hurt the value of the house next door, he added. As buyers eye properties only for the land, the houses themselves become a nuisance that has to be torn down. On Raleigh's Overbrook Drive, a half-acre lot is on the market for $499,000 -- $40,000 more than it sold for in June with a house on it.

The Triangle has a lot of growth issues to address. Infrastructure upgrades, water, mass-transit, schools. Add housing to the list. I'm fairly biased in what I would like to see, houses that fit the character of their neighborhoods rather than seeing castle after castle go up. Ugly castles, at that.