Growing up in a capital city, myself, I always enjoy contrasting and comparing them, so I found this thread really interesting. For however sprawled out it may be, at least in its core, it does a good job of hiding underutilized space with its vegetation. A lot of cities do this poorly, or they don't even care to do it.
That said, I think you are being way too hard on your old state capitol building. It's obviously too small - even for the time in which it was built - and it could be far more adorned. But, I could count off on one hand with no reference far more grand and adorned state capitols that are architecturally worse, if because of their horrible proportions are garishness. Bigger is truly not always better. Sure, the old North Carolina capitol could have been better, but it could have been much worse. I think it's a classy little structure, and certainly better than that thing the legislature now meets in.
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Where the trees are the right height
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