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"International companies will say, 'I want to see your downtown.' I say which downtown? They say. 'We want to see your center.' I say, 'Well, come to the airport,' " he said. "Sometimes your greatest assets are also your liabilities, and one of our assets is we are polycentric."

Ben Barker, who with his wife, Karen, owns the highly regarded Magnolia Grill restaurant in Durham, sees culinary tastes evolving and the region's nightlife gaining energy. But he also senses a growth in the sameness that suffuses much of America's new suburbs.

"It is the culture of the bland to a certain degree," he said.

Shaping the Triangle into a distinctive place, he said, is hindered by the region's lack of collaboration.

"There are groups of people who have a serious vision for Raleigh and Durham," he said, "They're independent, however, and there's no integrated method for them to share that vision, so they'll always be independent."

Dull, but there's hope

In the absence of a concerted push forward, the Triangle falls back into a safeness and sameness defined by malls, highways and subdivisions.

Larry Wheeler, director of the North Carolina Museum of Art, said the local appetite for art reflects a mix of Southern traditionalism and suburban conformity. But he thinks growth could bring improvement.

"Yeah, we have pretty dull taste, I think, but we have the potential for growing up and becoming much more cosmopolitan about who we are and the place where we live," he said.

Where we live isn't so nondescript, Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker said.

"I'm not sure that I agree that suburban is boring. It's family oriented, church-oriented, but just because there's not striking architecture doesn't mean that's not a vibrant lifestyle," he said.

But Meeker, who led the effort to re-open Fayetteville Street, sees a need for more focal points and more socially electric centers. Government, however, is limited in how boldly it can lead that process. Meeker noted the mid-1990s debate over public money spent on the $51,000 Time+Light sculpture on Raleigh's Capital Boulevard.

"It's OK to be a step ahead, but not too far ahead or you'll be misunderstood," he said. "I think the Light+Time tower was an example of being a step ahead of where the public wanted to be."

In a bolder place, a wealthy local patron may have responded to the anti-Light+Time philistines by paying to put up 20 or 30 more towers to create a glittering entrance to the city. But the multimillionaires produced by the tech boom are not particularly interested in putting their stamp on their new home.

Tom McGuire, a partner in the Philanthropic Advisory Group, a Raleigh organization that connects philanthropists and nonprofit organizations, said the new generation of givers care more about national and international causes.

Younger philanthropists, McGuire said, "are trying to make a difference in the world. It often doesn't involve a concrete and tangible thing here in Raleigh."

Hunger in Africa is more important than the hunger for fun in the Triangle, but if a more interesting Triangle is to emerge, some new money will have to stay home.

Enriching the region's culture, Wheeler said, "falls to people who have power, and people who have money have power."

Focus on amenities

That power has been shown in the Triangle's business sphere. Its positive effects on the quality of life -- better schools, roads, jobs and neighborhoods -- tend to be taken for granted by people looking for coffee shops, galleries and nightclubs, said Joel Garreau, a writer on the culture of high growth areas and author of "Edge City: Life on the New Frontier."

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