Research Triangle Park

The New South rising?

ryanteaguebeckwith — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 09:15:14 -0500

A Florida professor has weighed in on the definition of the South.

In a piece in the St. Petersburg Times Sunday, English professor Diane Roberts quotes Chris Kromm, director of the Institute for Southern Studies in Durham, on the litany of reasons people give for removing North Carolina from the South:

"Every time a Southern state starts voting for Democrats, people say, 'Oh, that's not the real South,' " says Kromm. When Barack Obama won North Carolina, Virginia and Florida, some "wanted to magically declare them somehow un-Southern."
The "Southern" parts of the South seem to be shrinking, at least to those who define "Southern" as white right-wingers who say "y'all." ...
North Carolina isn't Southern because it's attracting Midwestern retirees, Latinos and tech types. Plus, there's the Research Triangle, the constellation of great universities, labs and libraries so despised by Sen. Jesse Helms. Real Southerners don't cotton to book learning.

Roberts argues that North Carolina, Virginia and Florida are not aberrations, but the beginning of the "New South we've been promising ourselves since 1865."

Previously: Whistling Past North Carolina, parts 1, 2 and 3

Perdue's inaugural address

ryanteaguebeckwith — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 11:36:46 -0500

Gov. Beverly Perdue's inaugural address focused on the economy.

Speaking to thousands of assembled North Carolinans in front of the state archives on Jones Street, Perdue said that the state is "in the midst of a global economic crisis."

"People are actually worried about losing their jobs, about paying their mortgage, about their own personal future," she said.

She pledged to rebuild the state's economy, citing the creation of UNC-Chapel Hill, Research Triangle Park and a Kannapolis biotech center as precedents. She also earned a laugh by citing an unlikely economic development engine.

"No other state can claim to have turned the practice of hauling moonshine into the high-tech, fast-growth engine known as Nascar," she said.

Perdue ended by echoing words she had once used to criticize former Gov. Mike Easley.

"I pledge to be a fully-engaged, hands-on governor," she said. "The people's problems will be solved when we listen to them."

After the jump, the speech as delivered.

Perdue's Inaugural

Price gets bigger role on Appropriations

ryanteaguebeckwith — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 13:27:53 -0500

North Carolina's senior Democrat in Congress has expanded his reach on the powerful House Appropriations Committee.

U.S. Rep. David Price, a Chapel Hill Democrat, was added to the spending panel that oversees environmental and National Parks issues, Barb Barrett. Price was named this week to the Subcommittee on Interior, the Environment and Related Agencies for the upcoming Congress.

The subcommittee's jurisdiction includes the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA’s largest research facility is in Research Triangle Park. The National Institute of Environment Health Sciences also is located in RTP.

Price will continue his role as chairman of the subcommittee on Homeland Security. That post gives him jurisdiction for the nation’s spending on airport security, border security, federal emergency response and other homeland security issues.

He also will keep his post on the Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and Related Agencies.

Guillory: Seaboard South is different

ryanteaguebeckwith — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 16:45:32 -0500

Ferrel Guillory says the "Seaboard South" is different.

The head of the Program on Public Life at UNC-Chapel Hill says that Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia and Florida have moved away from the rest of the South in recent years.

He said the increased focus on high-tech jobs in Research Triangle Park and banking in Charlotte as well as the strengthening of the state's university system has led to a demographic shift that made the state more open to Democrat Barack Obama.

"Economically and demographically, the South has split in two," he said. "The 'Seaboard South' states — with the exception of South Carolina — have been growing robustly. They have moved more speedily into the newer economy and their metropolitan areas are burgeoning."

He said Obama found a pool of "persuadable voters" in the metro suburbs of North Carolina.

"Obama campaigned on a theme of change, but it was the change that was already here that put him over the top," he said.

Guillory made a similar argument in the biannual "State of the South" report in 2007.

Obama at Cree

ryanteaguebeckwith — Mon, 05 May 2008 18:14:59 -0400

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama speaks at a Cree manufacturing plant in Research Triangle Park today.

Obama drops in on Cree

ryanteaguebeckwith — Mon, 05 May 2008 13:00:23 -0400

DURHAM — No big rallies this time.

The setting for what is expected to be Barack Obama's final campaign appearance was in the sedate setting of CREE, a company in the Research Triangle Park that is producing LED lights, Rob Christensen reports.

Reporters nearly outnumbered CREE employees in a manufacturing room where Obama was scheduled to speak within the hour. Obama was expected to talk about both the economy and the environment.

The location was set up by Michael Cucchiara, a Chapel Hill businessman, who had been a major financial backer of former Sen. John Edwards. Cucchiara switched to Obama shortly after Edwards withdrew from the race in January.