Both cities appeal to me for different reasons. I do personally prefer Charlotte: for me it's bigger with a more expansive range of opportunity and entertainment. But one of the things that are great about both are the large black presence, they do that equally well...
Raleigh is more of an intellectual's city. One of the smartest cities I've been in, there's a natural air of learning and creativeness here. It's pretty cool to see, and I think that has an effect on the low level of violence here too. There is a lower feeling of black people wanting to harm other black people here, only other city I've lived in like this was Virginia Beach and I love it. It's truly unique in America to live amongst black communities that aren't largely plagued with genocide...
Charlotte actually has this too but to a lesser degree. There's a lot of black folk with money in both, and I've met people from all over who come to both of these cities and point out they've never seen so many black families and well to do black folk...
Both cities are loud and proud of themselves. Charlotte completely embraces it's southern persona, and in some ways is a smaller Atlanta, larger Raleigh/Greensboro mashup. Highly entertaining city, materialistic. Raleigh has a complex about its southern nature, there is this consistent tying of itself to NY and DC particularly. I'd say Raleigh is the more fashionable city of the two in the sense it's fashion is less try hard, more inclusive of alternative styles, whereas Charlotte is trendy but rides along more generally "black" styles of fashion...
Great food in both great shopping in both, but Charlotte wins this by a landslide. Just way too many more eateries and shopping venues, and Charlotte crushes anything entertainment, period. Museums, parks, these things are not bad in Raleigh, they are just better in Charlotte. Music, arts, same thing. Traveling acts, venues for entertainment, sports events...
Raleigh can get boring if you are from a larger city (case in point, Charlotte). In actuality the scope of things to do here fits the size of the city, so there shouldn't be the expectation Raleigh has the entertainment of a larger city...
If you need a point of reference, Raleigh should be compared to cities like New Orleans, Memphis, Providence, Richmond, Jacksonville, Hartford, Milwaukee, Salt Lake City. These are peer cities of Raleigh, anything smaller than these cities is too small to be compared to Raleigh. Anything larger than these cities is too big....
Point of reference for Charlotte would be cities like Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Newark, Portland, Austin, Tampa, St Louis, Baltimore, Oakland...
Charlotte and Raleigh are two different weight classes so you shouldn't have the expectation that they mirror each other. If you're more of a big city person you'd rather be in Charlotte though Raleigh has its dashes of big city-isms (namely in shopping options)...
Ultimately, I love them both differently. I'd rather live in Charlotte but Raleigh is beyond tolerable and plenty of people prefer Raleigh for its own merits...
and the rdu area is one continuous college town. 
. Yea, I'd definitely be open to moving back and buying if that's in the cards. It's a red state though, if that matters to folks. Flirts with purple at times but through and through its politics are definitely conservative.
