To put it another way, Nerdistan is not Raleigh or Durham or Chapel Hill. Instead, Nerdistan is that part of each city that gave up its original culture to embrace Research Triangle Park. Nerdistan is what used to be tobacco farms and crossroads communities and is now homes with a quarter acre, a private deck around back and a garage so that people don't ever have to interact with the world around them. It all began to make sense. Where once there was a firmly established culture based on farming, there is now confusion.
Transplants have different ethnic, social and even economic backgrounds than many natives.
That, in and of itself, is not a problem, but an opportunity. I think the founders of RTP concentrated so hard on building it up that they neglected other community values such as education, environment and transportation. We sacrificed them to attract high-tech companies, and thus became a nerdistan. Maybe if those of us working in RTP didn't have to leave to do everything, some bold new culture might arise. I am not saying that Nerdistan destroyed Southern culture.