Toward a better Southside

A new project aims to revitalize Durham’s Southside neighborhood through a partnership between the Duke and City of Durham. The Southside Housing Incentive Program allows University and University Health System employees to purchase housing in Southside through subsidized costs and forgivable loans from Duke for use on the down payment. We commend the University and Durham for this collaboration, which addresses the needs of both communities.

The rejuvenation of the Southside neighborhood has been in the pipeline since Mayor Bill Bell took office in 2001. Although projects to rebuild began about a decade ago, the neighborhood’s decline started with the demolition of several buildings in the area in the 1960s as the city cleared space for the construction of the NC-147 highway. Since then, the area has had low home ownership and high crime and poverty rates. Successful redevelopment of this area will likely benefit Durham by reducing the crime rate, bringing in new businesses and increasing tax revenue. We believe that the well-being of both Durham and the University are inextricably linked, and this project rightly belongs within Duke’s scope of concern.

We support Duke’s partnership with Durham in this venture both for the benefits it will bring to the city and the opportunities it creates for University employees. Duke has successfully taken on similar projects since the creation of the Duke-Durham Neighborhood Partnership in 1996, which aimed to provide structured support to revitalize neighborhoods in Durham near campus. We laud the University for continuing to follow through on this program’s top objectives, which include providing affordable housing.

University employees also stand to gain from the housing subsidies. For those who could not otherwise afford housing in this area, this program could be a boon. Shorter commutes will likely result in a better quality of life for employees, a stronger University community and a lower impact on the environment. Moreover, the Southside neighborhood is within walking distance from downtown Durham and public transportation terminals, making it convenient for residents and worthwhile to redevelop. Having Duke-affiliated residents in Southside also promises to promote healthy and amicable town-gown relations.

As this program takes effect, we question how the relationship between Duke and its employees might change. Because incentive programs can sometimes put undue pressure on employees to accept unfavorable loan conditions, Duke must ensure that programs like this do not use employees as a means to a larger end or inadvertently tip the balance of power any further in favor of the employer. While important to consider, these issues are unlikely to prove serious—as Duke has been successful with such projects in the past, the program is entirely voluntary, and the incentives are not so grand as to be coercive. Worries about the crime rate in this area are also mitigated because the city has a well-crafted, holistic approach to redeveloping Southside that will likely address this problem over time.

We hope that this program, like those before it, will produce a fruitful collaboration between Duke and Durham. As the city assists Southside residents financially and socially, we look forward to the revitalization of this area and hope that it will prove to be a positive experience for the University employees who take up the offer.