Business View Magazine
3
In the 1950s and ‘60s, what is now the world’s larg-
est university-related research park, Research Triangle
Park, was carved from Durham pinelands as a special
Durham County tax district. 170 major research and
development companies, including Bayer, GlaxoSmith-
Kline, IBM, Underwriters Laboratories, and agencies
such as the EPA, employ more than 39,000 full-time
employees there. Today, the population of Durham is
about 252,000, with 543,000 residents in the four-
county Durham-Chapel Hill Metropolitan area.
With the waning of the tobacco and textile sectors to-
ward the latter part of the last century, coupled with
the increased migration of retail institutions and popu-
lation to its surrounding suburbs, Durham’s downtown
AT A GLANCE
WHO:
Durham, North Carolina
WHAT:
A city of 250,000
WHERE:
North central North Carolina, approxi-
mately 25 miles northwest of Raleigh
WEBSITE
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