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Durham,
North Carolina (population
187,035 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.
Medical
Center, Durham Regional Hospital,
the North
Carolina Eye & Ear Hospital, North Carolina Specialty
Hospital, and the VA
Medical Center boast state-of-the-art facilities and over
2,250 physicians.
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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