RTP North Carolina USA

RTP is a non-city located between Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill, North Carolina. This is in the middle of North Carolina - a state on the eastern coast of the United states.

RTP is the Research Triangle Park. This is a block of land that was set aside to encourage the development of high-tech industry in North Carolina. It has been wildly successful, currently including major sites for IBM, Glaxo, BNR, Burroughs-Welcome, BASF, and soon to include Cisco. This means that there are a lot of companies here, and many of them are doing very interesting work. They are isolated in the middle of nowhere and there is almost no interaction among the companies.

The companies and major universities located in the area (including Duke, UNC and NC State) have done nothing to improve the quality of primary and secondary education - is is still among the worst in the country. Having lived in Europe, this is kind of like saying the worst of the worst.

This area was recently named the best location by Fortune magazine and others, Those of us who live here (except the politicians) have no idea how they could possibly have chosen this area, except by random chance.

I actually live in Durham. This is the home of Duke University and not much else (except the Durham Bulls - a minor league baseball team).