Raleigh's newly opened Fayetteville Street is a fine public space that adds an interesting focal point to the Triangle, but it is a surprisingly lonely public accomplishment for an otherwise dynamic region.

Given the growth of the past 15 years, the influx of hundreds of thousands of people and the construction of homes to accommodate them, malls to serve them and an Outer Loop to move them, shouldn't there be more landmark buildings, more public art, more adventurous public undertakings -- a mass transit system, a regional government, perhaps?

The Triangle struggles to collectively express what it is and what it wants to be. Consider Raleigh's current and telling debate over the Fayetteville Street art project proposed by famed Spanish artist Jaume Plensa. Some think it will obscure the heart of Raleigh. Others say it will give it one.

Pleasant is a wonderful quality in a region, but does the Triangle aspire only to be Pleasantville? It is a successful place, but is it also, well, dull?

"I wouldn't say we are dull," said Bill Rohe, director of Center For Urban and Regional Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill. "I would say we could be more exciting."

Don't expect anything dramatic in that direction, Rohe said. The Triangle is becoming more of a suburban culture, not less so.

"Once a place has a reputation for being liberal or conservative or quiet or wild, that reputation takes on a life of its own and starts attracting people who fit those images," he said. "Perceptions become very important and end up determining reality."

Rohe's colleague at Chapel Hill, Emil Malizia, chairman of the city and regional planning department, also sees the Triangle as an insular place that has neglected its public life.

Fayetteville Street may be "North Carolina's Main Street," but he said the Triangle's Main Street remains Interstate 40.

"We have a pretty isolated existence," Malizia said, "The only real pubic realms are highways. We interact with our neighbors through our windshields."

It's ironic that a boom launched by a masterstroke of imagination -- the creation of Research Triangle Park -- has produced a culture built around kids' soccer schedules, cul de sacs and lights out at 10 p.m. If the Triangle's economy is cutting edge, why isn't its culture?

Technological work hardly means people will be equally pioneering in how they play, said Joel Kotkin, a Los Angeles-based writer and futurist who studies suburban growth.

"I think that Raleigh-Durham is proof positive that tech growth is not related to hip coolness," he said. "Silicon Valley is also a dull place. It's not dull in terms of business, but would you go to San Jose for fun?"

Kotkin said the Triangle is an example of earnest and insular high tech communities he calls "Nerdistans."

"The tech economy is not built by 35 and single. It's built by 35 and married. If not married to someone, then married to their job," he said.

Creativity ranked high

Nonetheless, some think the Triangle's combination of academics and high-tech workers makes the area ripe for social dynamism. The book "The Rise of the Creative Class" by Richard Florida ranks the nation's creative capitals. Among large metro areas, the Triangle is sixth behind San Francisco, Austin, San Diego, Boston and Seattle.

Creative-cool may fit a smattering of Triangle neighborhoods, but it's not a phrase that fits the Triangle. The question is, what phrase does? Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill doesn't have the instant identity of the first five cities on Florida's list.

Charles Hayes, president and CEO of the Research Triangle Regional Partnership, a public/private partnership that promotes economic development, said the Triangle lacks a unified image because it's without a true center. It's not that there's no there there. It's that there is everywhere.

"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."

Garreau said the builders of places like the Triangle focused on infrastructure, not atmosphere.

"When some yuppie mentions the lack of ambiance, they look at them cross-eyed and say, 'You don't understand what this place used to be,' " he said.

But once the economic infrastructure is in place, Garreau said, the cultural amenities are the next stage of development.

Jeffrey Lee, an architect whose firm, Pearce, Brinkley, Cease & Lee, worked on the Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts, said the Triangle needs to decide what it wants to be before sprawl defines it.

"It's struggling to identify what it's going to be. Hopefully it will find its voice before too long," he said. "Otherwise, what you end up with is Plano, Texas."

The struggle for identity is showing up in a rising sense that not all growth is good and that public places and open spaces are as important as the next housing development.

WakeUp, a group in Wake County, is trying to counter the development lobby.

"We're concerned that most of the decisions locally have been highly influenced by the real estate community and are not taking the interests of all the citizens first," said Karen Rindge, the group's chairwoman.

Betsy Kane, a lawyer and Raleigh planning commission member, has seen an urban and artistic culture emerge in recent years.

"It's definitely not the dominant culture, but it's becoming a significant culture," she said.

One of the leaders of that change is downtown developer Greg Hatem, who founded Empire Properties in 1995. Hatem has restored a number of historic Raleigh buildings for uses as bars, restaurants and offices.

"I think over the next 10 years we're going to redefine ourselves somewhat on what is the center of the Triangle and what is the character of the Triangle. I think to some extent it's going to be these downtowns," he said.

In Raleigh, Hatem said, that character will be not a new character, but a true one.

"We have all this growth, but we're not flashy," he said, "We're kind of understated. We have a simple elegance."

Kotkin said that assessment fits the region, too.

"Excitement is not the word I would use for Raleigh-Durham. Competent. Good place to raise a family. Good place to own a business. A good place to go to school. All those you could sell me on," he said.

Then he added a thought both plaintive and hopeful, "It can't be completely boring forever, right? As the place grows there will more diversity and more people."