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isUalsouknown 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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