Forbes top-cities ranking? For Durham? Naw, couldn't have been!

First, some news that comes as little surprise to those of us who live in Durham and love it here: Forbes Magazine just ranked the Bull City as the twelfth-best city in the U.S. for business and careers. Sandwiched right between Provo, Utah and Albuquerque, New Mexico -- there sits the Durham MSA.

Heck, the issue in question has a picture of a bull on the cover, a good omen for some positive Durham news.

Now, some news that should also not be a surprise: I'll bet you haven't heard word one about this little award yet. Though I'm sure there's a good chance that you've heard something about the magazine's 2008 business and career issue.

You see, our friends just to our southeast over in Raleigh made #1 in the country in the list. Nothing to sneeze at, that's for sure. Funny thing is, if you read the local papers, or watch TV, you haven't heard word one about Durham's ranking.

WRAL ran a story on the rankings -- Raleigh's that is, as part of a piece that listed the whole top ten. Not Durham though; we may be one-third of the combined metro area, but number twelve didn't count in 'RAL's reporting. But WRAL -- an often-easy target for scorn, as the least-competent local media outlet by far when it comes to covering the Bull City -- isn't alone in missing this story.

The News & Observer, which covered the story only in a short three-paragraph blurb, also mentioned the Raleigh nod but not Durham's. (In last year's entirely separate Forbes.com jobs rankings story, the N&O celebrated Raleigh-Cary's #1 ranking while noting that Durham/Chapel Hill didn't make the list -- apparently ignoring the fact that Durham was not a large enough metro area to qualify for that particular ranking.)

How about Durham's own ABC 11? Nope. Only the top 10; only a mention of Raleigh. (I couldn't find a mention of the story at all at NBC 17's site -- though, to its credit, the upstart station does a better job hunting down a wide range of topics to cover than the me-too news coverage typically found on the tube.)

The Herald-Sun, perhaps? Not a mention, at least as far as I can tell from the Pickett Road gang's search engine, which is actually powered by trained primates from Duke's Lemur Center, who scour the newspapers lining their cage for the answers for your search request. (You know I made that up, but if you've ever searched for anything on the H-S web site, you might just believe it.)

How about our local boosters? Not yet, at least. The Durham Chamber has no news about this, though it does have a posting about last year's rankings, in which Durham came in #7. Nor does the Durham Convention & Visitor's Bureau, though if I know them, there'll be something posted about this soon.

Still, I'd expect to see both of them post the news before, well, the news does.

Now, I know some of the local news folks read this blog (and thanks for doing so, by the way.) So let me ask: Ranking first in the nation, as Raleigh did, is certainly newsworthy. Why isn't ranking twelfth out of two-hundred-plus communities at least worthy of some mention -- not the lede, perhaps, but something?

Comments

[Barry]

Keeps the riff-raff out.

[Jen]

I was a tad miffed at the coverage of the ranking. Especially when reading the Forbes article and half of the businesses are located in Durham. But like I tell my coworkers, our work address indicates RTP, instead of Durham, so the scared Durham fearing commuters will make it into work.

[Dave N.]

The Chamber may have chosen not to push this one too hard on this one because (1) the income growth ranking is awful and (2) the crime ranking isn't much better.

Sometimes local cheerleaders need to be careful pushing a #12 ranking when it will immediately raise questions as to why a close neighbor ranked a little higher.

[Annie]

From a Raleigh resident who posted on the Forbes blog:

Posted by gailhayes | 03/21/08 06:02 PM EDT

I have lived in Raleigh, NC for 27 years and I am going to tell you the real facts about the future here.

1) We just came through, and are still in, a serious drought situation. Per person we are limited to 35 gal/day of water. We are only to flush our toilets as needed for SOLID WASTE! Small businesses have closed down because they have been banned from using the water that is vital to running their businesses. We have been asked to replace our old toilets with low flow toilets, and all water faucets with low flow devices.

2) We have an antiquated sewer system which cannot handle solid waste for our current population i.e. use of garbage disposals has been banned! I would not be surprised if our Mayor Meeker's next proclamation will be that we all go back to using OUR HOUSES in our back yards. Yet our leaders keep calling y'all come on now! Ya heh?

3) Our schools are so overcrowded that most, if not all school campuses in Wake County are littered with Trailer Classrooms. We are asked no less than once a year to pass another Bond Referendum in the millions-billions. And, we have year-round schools.

4) The traffic here is horrific, and we are not building roads to accommodate the traffic we now have, much less the anticipated growth. It has never occurred to our city leaders that our traffic lights should be synchronized to allow for a smoother flow of traffic. Oh! When they need to add an extra lane to a road -- like Falls of the Neuse Rd., they paint one in with a can of spray paint.

5) Mass transit you ask? They have been talking about it for over a decade, but we still don't have it because they don't think our Yuppies will get out of their BMW's to use it.

Anyone ready to move to Ol' Rawlee?