Mayor Cowell frames Raleigh's growth, housing priorities and opens applications for a poet laureate

At the 2026 State of the City address, Raleigh Mayor Janet Cowell said the city has passed the half-million-resident mark and laid out priorities for housing, infrastructure, stormwater resilience and civic engagement, and announced an open call for the city's first poet laureate.

Cowell framed the speech around poetry as a way to describe Raleigh's character amid rapid growth and repeated the city's central planning figures: she said Raleigh has added about 100,000 residents since 2009 and is projected to add roughly 250,000 more over the next 25 years. "We have crossed half million in the past year," Cowell said, using the projection to underscore the need for continued building and investment.

The mayor cited specific development and infrastructure items to support that growth. She highlighted 4,000 building permits issued in the last year and named several major public and private projects: a new city hall expected in about a year, expansion of the convention center, relocation of Red Hat Amphitheater and construction of an Omni Hotel. Cowell also described an ongoing $1 billion capital plan covering 20 years and said the city is not constrained by…