Word: wilmington
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Wilmingtonians rarely discuss such issues, which is why Ruth Dooley has heard only vague mentions of "racial problems." Because if Wilmington isn't quite so safe as the Dooleys had hoped, it isn't quite so open and welcoming as they had imagined either. In their first two years in town, says Mike, strangers waved from passing cars, and everyone seemed to know everyone else, "but we were on the outside looking in. People were outwardly friendly, but that was like a mask. 'Hello, how you doing? Come over anytime.' Slam--here comes the door." Some of their neighbors simply...
...Dooleys didn't know it, but Wilmington's felony-crime rate had nearly doubled in the five years before they got to town. Armed robbery and crack-cocaine use are on the rise. "We've heard bad things about the high school," says Ruth. "They say there are racial problems." She pauses. "I'm not even sure how diverse this area...
Before the Civil War, Wilmington was a station on the Underground Railroad; today about 5% of its population is black. But its Quaker tradition of tolerance is being tested by uglier habits of mind, because the town has been buffeted by a series of racial incidents. In 1992 a bloody fight broke out between black and white students at an off-campus Wilmington College party. In 1993 and 1995 the Ku Klux Klan staged rallies at the courthouse; though fewer than 50 sympathizers showed up each time, black leaders were understandably concerned--and their fears were heightened last year when...
Despite such frictions, the Dooleys have made a happy life for themselves, finding friendships with other outsiders. Last summer they decided to retreat from Wilmington, buying an acre parcel in Sycamore Glen, a subdivision full of newcomers on what used to be a farm outside town. (More than 500 new houses have been built in the Wilmington area since 1995, and 1,000 more are planned.) Mike and Ruth are designing a two-story brick house with a deck overlooking their wooded backyard. But they're arguing about whether to put a front porch on the place. Ruth wants...
...commuting from as far away as northern Kentucky to sort packages in three vast warehouses that look like sets from Fritz Lang's Metropolis, with intersecting webs of conveyors and catwalks bathed in a yellow fluorescent glow. "If we had known how big Airborne was going to get," says Wilmington Mayor Nick Eveland, "we might not have been so welcoming." As Airborne grew, so did Rombach Avenue, the commercial strip that links the overnight-mail complex to downtown. Rombach became "Hamburger Alley," a neon riot of fast-food outlets and discount retailers like Wal-Mart. Eveland, who has held...