But now the city of 286,000 is becoming a hub for young companies looking to get their ideas off the ground.
Much of the activity has focused on the American Tobacco Campus, a former factory complex that has been completely revamped to include hip working spaces, retail, and restaurants and bars. Small startups, accelerators, and venture capital firms have made their homes there.
Plus, Google just confirmed that Raleigh-Durham is next on the list to get Google Fiber, the super-modern Internet service that's said to be 100 times faster than basic broadband.