Smarty Pants

Durham is sitting pretty as the fourth smartest "city" in the United States in a ranking by Portfolio.com released this morning.  It's a nice feather in Durham's cap, for sure, and those who live and work here should well be proud. 

Basically, it says that Durham is full of smart people. 

The ranking is fully described in the attached article, and it should be noted that the study from which it was generated, like so many others, is not just of a single city.  The study looked at Metropolitan Statistical Areas, so Durham's ranking included data from the four counties that make up the Durham, NC MSA - Chatham, Durham, Orange and Person.

The study uses educational achievement (and the resulting earning power) to determine rankings.  Take a look at a slide show of the winners here.

Durham is regularly lauded as a great place to live, was recently ranked by Money Magazine as the number one place in the US to retire, and is home to a dizzying array of cultural, medical, educational and business assets that make it the place where great things happen.

Lots of Good News to Drink In

Just a quick bit today as everyone tries to dig out of the in-box-voicemail-IM-turkey-coma burden that this day always represents...and that quick bit is really two bits of really good news.

First is that, and those who live here know this empirically, Durham's water is tasty! It ranks third statewide in the North Carolina American Water Works Association and Water Environment Association's annual competition. It won top honors in 1999 and 2006.

Second, it looks like Durham will soon be ranked as the state's fourth largest city, ousting Winston-Salem from their current position and trailing behind Greensboro, Raleigh and Charlotte respectively. Census numbers cite the population at 237,214 putting Durham at 84th place on the national list.

Durham Gets Second Census Research Data Center Lab

Durham's prominence as a research center is well known around the world.  With the release below, that position gets even stronger.  Durham will now have not one, but two Census Research Data Centers.  In addition to the Triangle Census Research Data Center (TCRDC) located on Duke University's campus--one of only nine centers in the U.S. and the only one in the Southeast--the Census is opening a new laboratory in Research Triangle Park in Durham. 

Below is a portion of the media advisory released minutes ago:



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: THURSDAY, OCT. 14, 2010

***CENSUS BUREAU MEDIA ADVISORY***

New Census Research Data Center Lab to Open in Research Triangle Park

What: Officials from the U.S. Census Bureau, RTI International, Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony to open a new Census Research Data Center (RDC) laboratory. The new lab, the Triangle Consortium Research Data Center, is actually a branch of the existing Triangle RDC at Duke University in Durham, N.C. RDCs are secure Census Bureau facilities where researchers from academia, federal agencies and other institutions with approved projects receive restricted access to unpublished Census Bureau demographic and economic microdata files.

When: Tuesday, Oct. 19, 2010; 1 p.m. (EDT)

Who: Robert Groves, director, U.S. Census Bureau  and Victoria F. Haynes, president and chief executive officer, RTI International

Where: RTI International, Building 7, 3040 Cornwallis Road, Research Triangle Park, N.C. 27709

Note: Videography and photography will be permitted. Directions to the RTI.  International campus and a campus map can be found at http://www.rti.org/pubs/rti_international_maps.pdf.