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There's a lot of theorizing, it seems, over Durham's success at attracting highly-educated residents. I might hypothesize it's because Durham has amenities that these folks want.
I know when we first talked about moving from Cambridge, Mass. to the Triangle, we wanted a community that was racially and economically diverse; had amenities like restaurants and an urban feel; and had walkable reality or potential. We looked at Durham, Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Cary and Apex. We settled on Durham as our out-and-out favorite. This was as Durham's revitalization was underway but far from as far along as it is today. It was also before my wife was accepted to grad school here.
When we moved to the Triangle, I checked our alumni club's website, and noticed that all the directors lived in Chapel Hill or Cary, none in Durham. Ten years later, there are more in Durham than Cary; and indeed, more in the western half of the Triangle including Hillsborough and Burlington than in the eastern.
Two highly-anecdotal data points. Oh, here's a third: PhD's live in two of the four houses surrounding me and in probably half of the houses on my street. The proximity of my house to Duke is part of it -- but one of the profs teaches at UNC, and their spouse works in Winston-Salem much of the week. They picked Durham because, well, Durham.
I think there's something about Durham, Chapel Hill and Carrboro that are attractive to folks with advanced education. Different personal and community priorities than in the very nice suburban communities that don't seem to attract these folks in as great a number.
There's a lot of theorizing, it seems, over Durham's success at attracting highly-educated residents. I might hypothesize it's because Durham has amenities that these folks want.
I know when we first talked about moving from Cambridge, Mass. to the Triangle, we wanted a community that was racially and economically diverse; had amenities like restaurants and an urban feel; and had walkable reality or potential. We looked at Durham, Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Cary and Apex. We settled on Durham as our out-and-out favorite. This was as Durham's revitalization was underway but far from as far along as it is today. It was also before my wife was accepted to grad school here.
When we moved to the Triangle, I checked our alumni club's website, and noticed that all the directors lived in Chapel Hill or Cary, none in Durham. Ten years later, there are more in Durham than Cary; and indeed, more in the western half of the Triangle including Hillsborough and Burlington than in the eastern.
Two highly-anecdotal data points. Oh, here's a third: PhD's live in two of the four houses surrounding me and in probably half of the houses on my street. The proximity of my house to Duke is part of it -- but one of the profs teaches at UNC, and their spouse works in Winston-Salem much of the week. They picked Durham because, well, Durham.
I think there's something about Durham, Chapel Hill and Carrboro that are attractive to folks with advanced education. Different personal and community priorities than in the very nice suburban communities that don't seem to attract these folks in as great a number.
BCR,
Professors and staff tend to have doctorates, tend to live in the community, and in great numbers tend to prefer the liberal cocoon of a university town.
IF the educational attainment stats in the CD comparison are accurate, it would seem that Cary hardly takes a back seat to Durham in educational attainment by residents.
And, Durham has Duke and NCCU (the latter having a wonderful jazz program.)
Again, IF the stats are reasonably accurate, the UNC presence and influence in Chapel Hill is seen with the number of doctorates held by the residents.
IF, IF... It would follow that Cary has over 6,000 doctorate-holding residents, compared to about 7900 in Chapel Hill.
Actually, for a city without a 4 year university incubating doctorates, Cary residents' degree attainment is clearly quite high.
BCR,
Professors and staff tend to have doctorates, tend to live in the community, and in great numbers tend to prefer the liberal cocoon of a university town.
IF the educational attainment stats in the CD comparison are accurate, it would seem that Cary hardly takes a back seat to Durham in educational attainment by residents.
And, Durham has Duke and NCCU (the latter having a wonderful jazz program.)
Again, IF the stats are reasonably accurate, the UNC presence and influence in Chapel Hill is seen with the number of doctorates held by the residents.
IF, IF... It would follow that Cary has over 6,000 doctorate-holding residents, compared to about 7900 in Chapel Hill.
Actually, for a city without a 4 year university incubating doctorates, Cary residents' degree attainment is clearly quite high.
BCR,
IF the educational attainment stats in the CD comparison are accurate
Mike, you bring up an interesting question. I didn't read through to find where the original article found the numbers. I'd guess both the article and City-Data are basing it off census data, but they don't quite match up, so I'd guess the NerdWallet numbers are more recent? Not sure.
Duke and UNC are by far the largest employers of PhDs in the area (several thousand each, including postdocs, staff and faculty), As major medical centers, they have research budgets and staffing roughly three times that of NCState (25000 employees each, vs 8000 for NCState). However, most PhDs in the triangle do not work in academics, and probably 1/4-1/3 of PhDs in the area work in jobs that don't "require" a PhD.
Durham by far has the most jobs for PhDs. In addition to Duke, you have the EPA, NIEHS, Hammner Institute, RTI and Family Health International, all of which employ multiple hundreds each. Then you have other major companies employing over 100 to including Glaxo, BD, Bayer, BASF, Syngenta, Quintiles, and Labcorp (I'm sure I've missed a few big ones). Then lots of other firms which employ dozens each (IBM, Cree, consulting firms like CATO, small biotechs, etc).
Probably a toss up between Chapel Hill and Wake after that. UNC is the major employer in Chapel Hill, followed I'm guessing by a lot of medical writing firms. Wake has NCState, state govt and SAS. Don't know of any other large scale employers (over 100) off the top of my head but I assume theres a lot of firms that employ dozens along the lines of IBM and Cree (Redhat?).
As far as where PhDs live, it looks like it roughly breaks down as follows (using the percentages from the article and 2013 pop figures).
Durham 12,000
Wake Co 15100 (Raleigh 8600, Cary 6500)
Chapelboro 11600 (Chapel Hill 8900, Carrboro 1700)
Surprise, surprise, Cary is a bedroom community for PhDs who work in Durham but need a comforting Stepford living experience :-)
Mike, you bring up an interesting question. I didn't read through to find where the original article found the numbers. I'd guess both the article and City-Data are basing it off census data, but they don't quite match up, so I'd guess the NerdWallet numbers are more recent? Not sure.
I wonder.
But, generally, I am willing to accept either as presenting a comparative picture for discussion purposes. Round numbers work.
Different cities, for sure.
Despite the 110,000 difference in population, Cary having only 58% the population of Durham, Cary shows ~80% school enrollment in K-12, compared to Durham enrollment.
(Working the CD comparative stats.)
Remember, RTP is NOT in the city of Durham. It is an area that goes from Durham County, into Wake County. Please keep that in mind when looking at stats.
Last edited by The Villages Guy; 08-18-2015 at 12:35 PM..
Remember, RTP is NOT in the city of Durham. It is an area that goes from Durham County, into Wake County. Please keep that in mind when looking at stats.
80% of RTP is in Durham County. Not sure why your knickers are in a wad,
80% of RTP is in Durham County. Not sure why your knickers are in a wad,
Yes and 20% in Wake County and 0% in the city of Durham. No wadded knickers. Just keeping it factual, amongst all the stats being discussed.
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