Market voices: Mayor’s corner
Jacques Gilbert Mayor Town of Apex
In terms of economic diversity, we’re about 80% residential and 20% nonresidential and within nonresidential you can have everything from restaurants and retail to industry and professional services. We recognize that diversification is key to our economy. We have done studies to see what kinds of industries and businesses would thrive in our community. We know that those are things like life sciences, IT, advanced manufacturing, research and development, office headquarters, data centers, and clean tech industries. We know those are good for this area because of our tier 1 research universities. To attract those types of companies we do have targeted marketing messages and we try to be very strategic about that to attract the industries that fit in our community.
The fact that we are located in the Triangle, so very close to Downtown Raleigh — a seven-mile commute — is a strong advantage for us. For years, Garner was known as a bedroom community and a blue-collar town. In the 30 or so years that I’ve lived here, it really has changed. It has become more affluent. We’re interested in growing in various sectors. We have some distribution centers. We also have an industrial park. We would like to see some different growth too. Life sciences is a big interest and some of our surrounding municipalities have been able to entice those companies to come to them. We’d like to see how we can do better in that regard.
Steve Schewel Mayor City of Durham
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Ken Marshburn Mayor Town of Garner
Both residential and commercial private development are pouring into Durham. There are two main reasons people want to come here. First is our quality of life: we are a wonderful, livable, walkable, green city and we are not seeing many of the urban problems that bigger cities experience. About 7,000 people move here each year, and that trend has increased during the pandemic. Second, we are a city that genuinely welcomes all people. We embrace diversity in race, religion, language, documentation status or orientation. Durham’s reputation for diversity and inclusion has been a boon for us. One example is Google. Recently, the company announced that it would bring an engineering hub to Durham. They specifically cited Durham’s inclusiveness and our attitude of truly making everybody feel at home.
| Invest: Raleigh-Durham 2021 | ECONOMY
