So those of us who live or work in Durham — or both — and care deeply about our city always need to take seriously the negative perceptions that are abroad in some quarters. We know the rap all to well — Durham? You want to live/work there? A crime-ridden city with mediocre public services and blighted neighborhoods?
If you live here, if you are in any remotely publicly accessible position, you have heard those questions, if not directly, surely second-hand from friends or coworkers pondering a move to this city.
The irony, of course, long has been that if you live more than 50 or so miles from here, the picture you see of Durham is quite different. You may see or hear about a city home to one of the finest public universities in the country and one of the most outstanding historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in the country, the first state-supported institution of higher learning for Africa Americans decades ago.
It’s a city renowned for its restaurants, one of the “foodiest” cities in the country, home to the bulk of one of the nation’s first and still premier research parks, nurturer of a particularly unique style of blues music, site of a growing arts and music scene, hometown of one of the most renowned franchises — thanks largely to a movie — in minor-league baseball.
A couple of developments last week focused my thinking on this topic, which readers will know is one that I return to frequently.
On the positive side, Police
Chief Jose Lopez briefed the City Council on statistics that show notable declines in crime in our city.
Just a day or so earlier the Durham Convention and Visitors Bureau had released its annual analysis of crime here compared with a number of similar cities in the region and in the Southeast.
We compare favorably. Granted, the DCVB’s role is to present the city in a favorable light. But CEO Reyn Bowman and his soon-to-be successor, Shelley Green, are serious students of data and the integrity of their surveys is solid.
At the same time those reports were coming out, we saw or read the horrific report out of nearby Cary that a Realtor had been sexually assaulted by a man posing as an interested homebuyer.
We deeply regret violence against anyone, anywhere. But the incident — a risk as I understand it that is never far from the minds of Realtors — is a reminder that violence can assault us no matter where we are. Even in historically safe –— and demographically homogenous — communities such as Cary, the threat is there.
Durham, the DCVB statistics show, is about average on our rate of violent crimes. Some have lower rates, but many have higher. (Look at the numbers and you wouldn’t want to live in Baton Rouge, La., for example, or Birmingham, Ala.)
And a concerted effort by police and community groups is making inroads against the crime that does occur here, as Lopez made clear in his report to the council.
Those efforts can’t relent and, as some council members noted, there’s an anecdotal impression some crime is ticking up.
We may be about average in our crime numbers, but that calls to mind a line that Tom Bradshaw used to cite when he was mayor of Raleigh in the early 1970s.
Average? Tom would ask. That means you’re the best of the worst, or the worst of the best.
That’s not where we want to be.
But it is a long way from the perception of this city as an unsafe jungle.
We have a long way to go. We d have work to do. We need to worry about such embarrassing benchmarks as having some of the lowest-performing high schools in the state, a tragedy that helps lead to legions of unemployable young men and women, some of whom will inevitably contribute to our violent crime.
Even as we worry about the challenges, though, we should retain perspective. On balance, this is a wonderful place to live.
Bob Ashley is editor of The Herald-Sun. Contact him at (919) 419-6678 or by e-mail at bashley@heraldsun.com
