A Community of Vision
Durham: from Tobacco and Textiles to Technology and changing how we live
The Durham of yesterday was a city with traditional Southern charm and traditional Southern industries: tobacco and textiles. The Durham of today is an All-American City, the City of Medicine, USA. Double billed along with Raleigh in 1993, Durham today is Fortune magazine’s choice as the Best City for Knowledge Workers in the Country. Durham County today is home to 75 percent of the world-renowned Research Triangle Park, the largest planned R&D industrial park in the country. Amazingly though, there is much more to Durham business today than RTP!
From its earliest days, Durham has been a city focused upon the value of innovative business endeavors guided by ingenious business people. In 1865, Durham was a mere railroad stop serving as home to less than 100 people. However, the entrepreneurial spirit of those like Washington Duke and Julian S. Carr propelled Durham into an industrial age of mechanized manufacturing of cigarettes. Naysayers were plentiful when these men decided that Durham would be the City of the New South.
By the early 1900’s however, Durham’s two largest tobacco factories dominated the domestic and world golden leaf markets with their “high-tech” Bonsack Cigarette Rolling Machines. Bull Durham Tobacco and American Tobacco Trust combined to produce a majority of US cigarettes and smoking tobacco. Developing along with this boom was the textile industry. Originally a direct offshoot of the tobacco companies’ need for tobacco bags and sacks, this industry matured under the Durham entrepreneurial business spirit to produce all sorts of consumer materials from shirts, to socks, to pantyhose. Durham’s entrepreneurial spirit also resulted in the development a vibrant African-American business community. The best known of which are North Carolina Mutual Insurance Co., and Mechanics & Farmers' Bank, were centered on Parrish St. in downtown, which would come to be known as "Black Wall Street".
As indications of the health affects of smoking tobacco become well-known and more understood, new visionary leaders saw that North Carolina in general and Durham in particular needed to position themselves for economic success in a new era. The Research Triangle Park was incorporated in 1956 in southern Durham County. While many people scoffed at the original concept of RTP as an industrial park focused primarily upon R&D instead of smokestack manufacturing, the organizations now established in the Park represent some of America’s largest industrial and governmental agencies engaged in scientific and technological research.
Durham has experienced an evolution in its economic base ignited by individuals who formed dynamic partnerships and harnessed cutting-edge technology to add life to new ideas. From the tobacco and textile boom of the early 1900’s to the high-tech/ biotechnology emergence of the 21st century, Durham remains at the forefront of technological innovation because of the commitment individuals hold to their ideas and the risks they take to transform these ideas into reality. With a dynamic environment that balances a steady focus on product innovation with customer satisfaction, Durham has a long-standing record of distinguished technological results. Durham is the ideal home for a knowledge based organization precisely because of this stimulating environment and has what it takes to help nurture and cultivate an organization’s future success.
In fact in recent years, Durham has been successful in nurturing a number of locally established home-grown technology companies as well as attracting new businesses to our community. Businesses are growing and moving here for a number of reasons such as the critical base of knowledge located here, the high quality of life, easy access to many companies and institutions along the Eastern Seaboard, the availability of talented labor, the admirable cost of business, and the supportive business and academic environment. Due to the dynamic nature of Durham’s community and economy world class talent from all over the world is attracted to live and work in our community. Leading scientists hail from a host of international locations located around the globe. Close collaboration between the academic and business communities fosters a free flowing exchange of information and ideas beneficial to both groups.
Durham has developed a growing, diversified economy with a strong foundation in electronics, telecommunications, health care and medical related industries. Durham is also known as the “City of Medicine USA” because of the importance that biotechnology, health care, and medical-related industries play in Durham's economic base. Of the 144 biotechnology companies located within the state of North Carolina, nearly one half of these companies are based in Durham County. As Ralph Sniderman, the former Chancellor of Health Affairs at Duke University Health System was fond of saying, “discoveries being made in Durham are benefiting humankind.” The work of three Nobel laureates in medicine, the resources of one of the world’s finest medical centers (Duke University Medical Center), and the contributions of other biomedical and biopharmaceutical researchers are speeding along new treatments and cures for disease from the laboratory to the clinic.
Research and development (R&D) activities in a wide array of industry categories are flourishing in Durham, and they play a particularly strong role in Durham's present and future economic base. Companies undertaking R & D activities in the fields of biotechnology, genomics, nanotechnology, photonics, pharmaceuticals, fiber optics, software, electronics, and computer related equipment have found Durham to be a very creative and productive environment.
While Durham's economy has a strong research and development component, manufacturing of automotive components, jet engines, medical instruments, pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, telecommunications, and synthetic textile products thrive in our community. Durham is one of the few communities in the country where manufacturing employment is increasing. In fact, since 1990, manufacturing employment increased by nearly 5,000 workers or 18%, quite an accomplishment considering global economic trends at work today. Manufacturing continues to be a strong and vital component of Durham’s economy due to its manufacturing history and strong support in the community.
