Yeah, as a teenager, I am bored. Everything is the same. I don't enjoy going to the mall anymore. I just do. Malls suck.
Raleigh needs to start having some balls and offering incentives for people ot open up new stores, Maybe make a whole street downtown a chain-free zone. Just to let you guys know, up by crossroads, where holly springs rd. turns into walnut, they are building a new shopping center. That intersection had a CVS, and will soon have a walgreens, harris teeter, and Eckerd. I'm starting to hate the triangle.
Austin TX has it right. I went there two summers ago and was actually a little discomforted by the fact that there were virtually NO chain stores in existence. I love that city, raleigh needs to be more like them.
Austin actually started a "keep austin weird" campaign, they made shirts, bumper stickers, the works, and under the slogan it said support local businesses. Everyone in austin has one of those and everybody who has been to austin has one too. Lets be copy-cats (except raleigh never had enough independent businesses to classify as weird in the first place, maybe "make raleigh weird" campaign)