Duke & Durham
Located in the hills of the North Carolina Piedmont, Durham is an active, diverse city of a quarter million people where technology, arts and academics meet Southern charm.
(Photo Credit: Heather Jacks and Durham Convention & Visitors Bureau)
Known as “The Bull City” and “The City of Tobacco” due to its historical association with Bull Durham tobacco, Durham is also the “City of Medicine” thanks to the presence of the Duke University Medical Center. Durham was long known for its “Black Wall Street,” with a thriving segregation-era African-American community featuring the largest Black-owned businesses in the nation. Now home to the Research Triangle Park consortium of business, education, and research facilities, Durham boasts a high-tech post-industrial economy based in information technology, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, medicine and education. The red brick textile mills and cigarette factories that characterize central Durham have found new life as offices, condos, shops, restaurants, farmers’ markets, music clubs, performance spaces and art galleries.
The New York Times ranks Durham among the top 41 places in the world to visit in 2011. Durham and environs have also recently been named:
- among the top ten places in the U.S. to live (U.S. News & World Report)
- America’s best place to retire (by both Money Magazine & Black Enterprise)
- America’s foodiest small city (Bon Appétit)
- America’s #4 most affordable city (NBC’s Today Show)
- America’s #4 best city for college graduates (The Daily Beast)
- America’s #7 best place for college students to live (American Institute for Economic Research)
The robust energy of Durham is fueled by its racial and cultural diversity, as well as its mixture of old and new, science and art – all of which give Durhamites a unique perspective on the world. Both its food trucks and its four-star restaurants are nationally reviewed, and its new Performing Arts Center is one of the most successful in the nation. Durham is home to the Durham Bulls minor league baseball team, the American Dance Festival, the Nasher Museum of Art, the North Carolina Museum of Life and Science, the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, the Bull Durham Blues Festival, the North Carolina Gay Pride Parade and the World Beer Festival. Duke Forest, Eno River State Park, and numerous lakes offer hiking, biking, boating and other recreational activities just minutes from downtown.
Durham is part of the 13-county North Carolina Research Triangle Region (pop. 1.6 million), which is one of the fastest growing areas of one of the fastest growing states. The region, which features the highest concentration of “creative class” workers in the nation, includes the state capital of Raleigh and the college town of Chapel Hill. Notable features of the area are the North Carolina Museum of Art, the North Carolina Natural History Museum, the Carolina Hurricanes professional hockey team, Time Warner Walnut Creek Amphitheater and Umstead State Park, as well as numerous colleges, museums, restaurants and cultural venues.
For more information on Durham, on Raleigh, Chapel Hill.