Since I moved downtown Raleigh (DTR) I’ve really fallen in love with this city. I couldn’t have moved downtown at a better time in the City’s evolution into a really great place to live and work. Furthermore, my job ended up being based downtown so I have the best of both worlds! I even sold my car in March of 2018!
With that, I’ve also really found a passion for things going on around DTR. Some of those things are festivals, social activities, just meeting up with friends I’ve met over the last 3.5 years. I’ve also really sunk my teeth into tracking developments downtown and even dabbling in local politics to the point where I’m starting to get involved with processes around zoning, rezoning, following CAC agendas (Citizen Advisory Councils) and most importantly, Raleigh City Council and how that group impacts things going on in our City.
One source that has been incredibly useful in tracking goings on around DTR is dtraleigh.com. Leo started this as a blog about Downtown Raleigh over 10 years ago and has built amazing content for others to peruse. Last year Leo added a Discourse-based community discussion forum that has been virtual gold for discussing, tracking and collaboration on all things DTR. I’m an active participant in discussion and photography and really enjoy the results of the group participation.
That has all somewhat culminated in working to build a brand that I can use to bring some consistency and heightened engagement/awareness to my posts both on Twitter and Instagram in context of Downtown Raleigh. I’ve standardized on “oakcitydylan” vs my traditional “xtremetoonz”. I’m also now working to establish original hashtags #dtrlove and #rlghlife. I’ve registered http://rlgh.life and now have a Short URL service running for that domain. By integrating all of that into my social posts, I’m hoping the brand will grow and I can help raise awareness with our downtown residence and increase participation in our local government.
Maybe not so coincidentally I’m also helping with a grass routes effort to build an organization that will do all of the above things representing and activating downtown Raleigh residents. More on that to come once it’s official and slightly better established.
Stay tuned!