Cary, NC

Cary is a thriving community in the heart of the Triangle area of North Carolina, between Raleigh and renowned Research Triangle Park. The Triangle area repeatedly has ranked among the top regions in the country to live or work, to find a home or start a business, to raise a family or retire.

The January 2004 issue of Money Magazine names Cary, N.C. the hottest town in the East and one of six Hottest Towns in America. In August 2006, Cary was again recognized by Money Magazine as one of the Best Small Cities in America, ranking fifth on the magazine’s 2006 list of Best Places to Live.

On the whole, Cary residents are a blessed, hard-working group with one of the highest median household incomes in the state. And being no further than 20 minutes from major universities such as Duke, North Carolina State, and the University of North Carolina, it’s no wonder that education is an important part of Cary life. More than two-thirds of adults hold a college degree. Nearly 9 in 10 citizens have access to the Internet in this, the Technology Town of North Carolina.

Cary embraces the best of city life:

• Our sense of security – Cary continually ranks as one of the top 20 safest large cities nationally and the safest in the Southeast. Its Police and Fire departments and Emergency Medical Services are nationally accredited.
• Livability – Tree-lined streets and well-groomed subdivisions and office parks show Cary has grown the right way.
• Vibrancy – Cary is home to world class businesses and national retail stores. Our fast-growing Parks, Recreation and Cultural Resources program has something for everyone, regardless of age or interest.
• Diversity – School-age children comprise nearly a quarter of Cary’s population. Yet people of retirement age are the fastest-growing group in Cary. Fourteen percent of townspeople were born in another country, and the Asian population – Cary’s largest minority – tripled during the 1990s.
• A progressive approach to challenge – Cary is proactive. We’re conserving drinking water by reclaiming treated wastewater for irrigation and industrial processes, preserving open space, and working with citizens and county leaders to make our schools even better.

Yet we’ve remained the Town of Cary while growing to more than 100,000 people.

At the Town of Cary, we focus every day on enriching the lives of our citizens by creating an exceptional environment and providing exemplary services that enable our community to thrive and prosper.

Cary Statistics

Number of residents is 132,647 (October 2008)
Last year’s population growth was an increase of 5.73 percent since October 2007.
The average annual population growth rate is 4.37 percent (October 01, 2003 to October 01, 2008).
Media household income is $104,858.
Income change over time is 69.85% since 1990.
Median home price in Cary is $264,000.
Housing values have been increasing 6.38% on average in the past 2-5 years.
Job growth has bee around 24.50% from 2000-2007.
Median age is 34.
84.4% of Residents complete at least some college.
Approximately 62.9% of residents are Married, while only 6.9% are divorced.
Racial diversity index is 96.  (100 is national average, so the higher the number the greater the diversity)

Cart at Play

• Cary has more than 20 public parks, 20 miles of trails, cultural arts programs as well as concerts and other special events throughout the year.
• The Amphitheatre at Regency Park is the Town’s state-of-the-art performance center nestled in the trees by a lake, featuring N.C. Symphony concerts and other performances. Downtown, Cary’s Lazy Daze Arts and Crafts Festival has become one of the South’s premier festivals over the past quarter century.
• The annual Jimmy V Celebrity Golf Classic draws big names from the sporting and entertainment worlds to raise money for cancer research.
• The Triangle boasts major league hockey, Triple A baseball and other professional and college sports teams, including N.C. State University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University.

Cary at Work

• Cary is in the heart of the Triangle area, which repeatedly ranks among the top places in the nation to begin or expand a business.
• Cary is home to world-class businesses. The largest employer is SAS Institute Inc., the biggest privately-held software company in the world. Other widely known companies in Cary include MCI WorldCom, IBM, American Airlines Reservation Center, Lucent Technologies, Siemens, John Deere and Cotton, Inc. Business 2.0 magazine has put the area at the top of its “boom town” list measuring cities’ capacity to create high wage jobs.
• Cary chambers of commerce
• Greater Raleigh Convention & Visitors Bureau
• Wake County Real Estate Records

Cary at School

Schools in Cary are part of the Wake County Public School System. The system includes schools on traditional and year-round calendars.

Although schools are not a Town government responsibility in North Carolina, Cary leaders have responded to public interest in schools by making education a priority. Half of Cary adults have school-age children.

The Town appropriated more than $8 million to benefit schools with Cary students during the 2000-2001 through 2002-2003 school years. The schools funding project was the first such economic development through education initiative in the state.

The first public high school in North Carolina began as a prestigious boarding school in Cary during the late 1800s. Today, two-thirds of adults in Cary have a college degree. Three major universities – N.C. State University in Raleigh, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University in Durham – are less than 25 miles away.

Looking back on how Cary originated

A settlement called Bradford’s Ordinary began in 1750 in what is now Cary. However, the man credited with founding Cary was Allison Francis “Frank” Page, who was its first developer, mayor, postmaster and railroad agent.

Page and his wife, Catherine “Kate” Raboteau Page bought 300 acres here in 1854. He named his development after Samuel Fenton Cary, a prohibition leader from Ohio. Cary was incorporated in 1871, several years after the Seaboard and North Carolina railroads formed a junction in Cary.

Page, whose main business was a sawmill, laid out the first streets of Cary and built a hotel. What became known as the Page-Walker Hotel is now an arts and history center on Town Hall campus. It is on the National Register of Historic Places.

One of Frank and Kate Page’s sons is Cary’s most famous son. Walter Hines Page (1855-1918) was an editor, publisher, social reformer and proponent of public education. He was ambassador to Great Britain during World War I. The British honored him with a tablet in Westminster Abbey.

With development of Research Triangle Park in the 1960s, Cary began to grow as a bedroom community for the park from a quiet town of a few thousand people. Growth escalated during the 1970s, with the population nearly tripling to 21,763. The population doubled during the 1980s, and doubled again during the 1990s.

To Learn More about Cary

The Cary Heritage Museum on the third floor of the Page-Walker Arts and History Center has a listening station for oral histories. Artifacts include medical instruments and the World War I uniform of Dr. James Templeton, who volunteered for the Army at age 62, and was a “country doctor” for nearly half a century.

Cary is Looking Ahead

Cary has steadfastly remained a town, preserving the comfort; security and neatness that have helped define it. But Cary embraces the best of city life – vibrancy, diversity and a progressive approach to challenge.

In recent years, the Town has instituted measures to more closely manage growth, which remains a regional issue. Cary has embarked on an ambitious open space conservation program to protect water quality and preserve the natural beauty of the region.

The Town of Cary believes in getting out in front of challenges rather than waiting and reacting. It leads the way in protecting the environment and was the first in the state to conserve drinking water by reclaiming its highly treated wastewater for irrigation at hundreds of homes and businesses.

From humble beginnings, Cary has developed into the Technology Town of North Carolina in the heart of one of the most dynamic and livable areas in the country.