Durham,
North Carolina (population 187035 in 2000 census) is located in the
Heartland of NC. Beautiful weather with three growing seasons, and central
location made this area ideal for agriculture, education, medicine, and a hub of
economic activities.
Forbes Magazine lists Raleigh-Durham, NC as #3 on the Top Best Places to live
and work in the United States. Durham's tobacco community of blue-collar
workers with unshakable values and work-ethics, is also known world-wide as
the City of Medicine USA. The combined annual payroll of Durham's 300 medical
and health-related businesses is over $1.5 billion. The medical industry
provides employment for 28% of the population.
Time Magazine
extolled the medical facilities here in a 36 page article listing Duke
University Medical Center as #4 medical center in the US, #2 in physical
therapy, #1 in physician assistants, #2 healthiest city for women, #9 in
microbiology, and #5 in pharmacology/toxicology. US News has called Duke among
the best Graduate Schools in the United States. The VA
Medical Center is listed in the top 11% of all hospitals nationally, and has
been cited for outstanding work in Geriatric Research. (The VA Medical Center
research funding in FY02 was $14,000,000.00)
The famed Research Triangle
Park is located in Durham and 50% of the biotech firms based in North
Carolina are located in Durham.
Education and family are valued in Durham, which is home to the famed Duke
University. One of the world's leading institutions for education, research
and medical care, Duke began as a rural schoolhouse in 1838. Higher education is
also served in Durham by North
Carolina Central University, Durham
Technical Community College, Center for Employment Training-Research
Triangle Park, Dudley Beauty College, Carolina Beauty College 3, and Watts
School of Nursing.
Long a hotbed of alternative journalism, a community of new Southern writers has
sprung up in Durham: Claude Edgerton, Laurel Goldman, Allan Gurganus, Reynolds
Price, and Lee Smith. The hot and edgy magazine DoubleTake is now on hiatus, but
The Independent,
and the Africa News Service are still making their journalistic mark.
The black race population percentage is significantly above the NC average, as
is the percentage of population with a bachelor's degree (or higher). North
Carolina Central University, a black university, and Pear Street, (known as the
black Wall Street), began attracting upper middle class blacks back in the late
1920's. Many of Durham's Historic Landmarks are markers of Afro-American history
and influence.
And Durham has not forgotten tobacco. When faced with a dying downtown area, the
business leaders of Durham commissioned a new baseball stadium modeled after
Baltimore's venerable Camden Yards. Durham's minor
league team, the Bulls (named in 1902 for Bull Durham - tobacco, not the
movie), now draw 10,000 people downtown for an average game.
Butner, NC, Cary, NC, Carrboro,
NC, Chapel
Hill, NC, Farrington, NC, and Hillsboro, NC, are all within 17 miles of
Durham.
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