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Subject: RTP-area local music and culture

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  • From: grady <grady AT ibiblio.org>
  • To: RTP-area local music and culture <ch-scene AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: On Durham and identity
  • Date: Thu, 05 Apr 2007 11:45:23 -0400

I dunno, I bet you I could find a lot of other cities of 200,000 with really *really* crappy music scenes. I think we forget how remarkable the music culture in the Triangle in general, and in Chapel Hill/Carrboro in particular, is, in comparison with other cities around the country.

What does Chapel Hill have that makes it special? It's a tiny college town that *isn't* out in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. In larger cities like Raleigh (or Durham, for that matter, given the comparative size of Duke vs UNC or NCSU), the influence of the student population on the overall culture is diluted.

But most small college towns are just that, small towns, whose only reason for being is the college. Lot of transition, hard to keep anything worthwhile going for a long time. Chapel Hill has that mix of lots of students, plus jobs (in the Triangle as a whole) for the students once they graduate.

Only for the past few years, a lot of those settling-down graduates have gradually been drifting away from Chapel Hill, towards Chatham, or Durham. There's a fun poll for us to conduct: Hey, Durham musicians, where did you go to college?

Getting back to what Rossi said, I think what will be more interesting even than watching the arts scene in Durham as Durham gentrifies, is watching the arts scene in Chapel Hill as it struggles with its own gentrification issues. Go check out this thread on orangepolitics.org about Culture Shock: http://orangepolitics.org/2007/01/culture-shock/

(I don't mean Duncan, who posted a half-dozen times to that thread; I mean the rest of y'all)

Ross

Duncan Murrell wrote:
Census 2000

City of Durham : 201, 726 population, 1,976.4 people per square mile.

Town of Chapel Hill: 48,715 population, 2,466 people per square mile.

Free Republic of Carrboro: 16,782 population, 3,753.7 people per square mile.


Durham: Median income, household: $41,160; median income, family: $51,162; median income, men: $35,202; median income, women: $30,359; per capita income, city: $22,526. 15% of population below poverty line.

Chapel Hill: Median income, household: $39,140; median income, family: $88, 200; median income, men: $50, 258; median income, women: $32, 917; per capita income, town: $24,133; 21.6% of population below poverty line.

Carrboro: Median income, household: $33,527; median income, family: $47,330; median income, men: $30,099; median income, women: $31,090; per capita income, town: $21,429; 19% of population below poverty line.


What's remarkable isn't that Durham has a burgeoning and supportive musical culture, but that we're talking about such a thing being remarkable in a city of 201,000 people.

d
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