Town of Chapel Hill

Sometimes described by its booster as “the pat of butter in a sea of grits,” Chapel Hill (and its adjunct community, Carrboro) lies on a belt of high and wooded ground two and a half hours from the Atlantic Ocean and three east of the Appalachian range. We are 140 miles east of Charlotte, and 25 minutes north of Raleigh, our capital. But Chapel Hill’s citizens understand that what makes our town so agreeable is not that it lies in the gravitational field of other destinations, but that it is politely and resolutely a distinct place with an array of magnetisms (often counterpoised) entirely its own.
--Wells Tower, an excerpt from 27 Views of Chapel Hill, Eno Publishers