Welcome to Durham!

Many people who are coming to "Electronic Techtonics: Thinking at the Interface," will be startled to see that downtown Durham is one massive construction site. For many years (decades, even), people have said that Durham is “coming back.” This time, it really seems to be happening. For almost fifty years, since the demise of legal segregation and the end of Durham’s remarkable history as “the Black Wall Street,” downtown Durham has had few inhabitants. A handful of artist spaces, some nonprofits, some marginal commercial spaces, city service buildings, lots of empty spaces, few actual full-time residents. Now, thanks in part to two former Duke basketball players, Christian Laetner and Brian Smith, empty tobacco factories and warehouses are being turned into beautiful residential loft spaces and virtually every building in the downtown is in the process of being renovated into residences, restaurants, galleries, commercial spaces. There’s a new Durham Bulls baseball stadium and yet another tobacco warehouse beautifully renovated and fully occupied with businesses, restaurants, civic spaces, and residences (in progress). A huge civic auditorium is being built adjacent to the ballpark. The Sun Trust building (by the same architect who designed the Empire State Building) is being lofted. The Carolina Theater (adjoining the Marriott) was beautifully renovated in the 1980s and now hosts, among myriad other events, the international Full-Frame Documentary Film Festival. Next to that is the Durham Arts Council (site of Friday night’s performance with VJ Cyops and DJ RasMussis), another proud Durham institution. There are monthly downtown Durham art crawls and block parties (like the one on Friday night, April 20, to which all conferees are invited). There’s a vital YMCA with important community outreach (and a great swimming pool for Marriott guests). There’s a Saturday morning farmer’s market and Central Park down the street from the Marriott. The downtown itself now boasts several fine restaurants, including two in the immediate downtown loop, inconceivable even a year ago.

At the same time that this is all very exciting, renovation comes with a social and economic cost. This isn’t a typical “gentrification” because not many actual residents displaced by all of this. But there were shelters and barely-thriving businesses that now are moving out to the periphery, as they are in many cities. For more information, you can go to “Endangered Durham,” at http://endangereddurham.blogspot.com/index.html. We also recommend that you visit Digital Durham, a collaborative teaching, research, learning, and digitization project under the directorship of Professor Trudi J. Abel, that includes content, archives, and lesson plans created and analyzed by faculty and students at Duke University, North Carolina Central University, and other Durham institutions. Visit: http://digitaldurham.duke.edu/