In 2020, the city of Durham was at a crossroads. After a decade of growth, the COVID-19 pandemic ravaged the local economy and stilted progress. That same year, Durham native Joshua Gunn, a creative entrepreneur and local hip-hop musician best known for “bodying cowards” on the local rap battle circuit and for his contributions to G Yamazawa’s 2017 “sauce-with-the-slaw sensation,” North Cack, was facing his own crossroads.
Gunn had just run unsuccessfully for a seat on the Durham City Council and was four years into his role as the vice president of the Durham Chamber of Commerce.
Then opportunity came knocking and Gunn was recruited to lead the economic recovery of Peoria, Illinois, as the CEO of its chamber of commerce. Peoria had suffered a significant blow after the construction and manufacturing titan Caterpillar moved its headquarters to Irvine, Texas. Three years later, Gunn took his talents to the Southwest to oversee one of the fastest-growing regions in the country: Glendale, Arizona.
Now, after five years away, Gunn is returning to the Bull City to serve as the director of the Office of Economic and Workforce Development and spearhead the next wave of economic success in his hometown.
We talked to Gunn about the opportunity to come home, what he learned in his previous jobs, and how to take Durham into the economy of the future.
INDY: Even though it’s been a while since you’ve been here, there’s still a lot of the same bones and infrastructure here, and many of the same players, too. So outside of the obvious, what excites you about coming back to Durham and playing in this sandbox?
Gunn: My passion for economic development is really born out of a passion for Durham. I didn’t go to school for this, this wasn’t a career path that I saw. I’m just an artist and creative who cares about my town. I’ve been in this economic development space now for damn near a decade. I’ve had the chance to leave Durham, go do this work in a couple of communities, and the opportunity presented itself to come home. It’s a dream scenario to get to do the work that’s kind of been one of my new passions for the better part of a decade.
Job creation is something I’m passionate about—helping people make their dreams come true but also provide for their families, helping people start businesses, grow businesses. I’ve seen a tremendous impact, even in my own world, for people who maybe don’t have a skill or credential and helping them access those skills or credentials, whether it’s through trade school, community college, or workforce development programs, and then get a career-sustaining job and purchase a home and have a family. Those things really excited me in Durham when I was vice president of the chamber. And then, of course, the big-picture stuff gets the headlines, right? Recruiting a big company or helping a project come out of the ground that’s going to make downtown cooler, or RTP cooler, or provide some sort of quality-of-life amenity for the city.
What did you learn from your time in Peoria and Glendale that you think will help you in this new endeavor in Durham?
How I related to Peoria immediately was this chip on their shoulder, because in Illinois, it’s Chicago and then there’s everything else. Outside of the people who are in the city, it has somewhat of a negative connotation when you say “Peoria,” because it’s also like 40 percent Black, it’s heavy industrial, it’s an old city, it’s got some challenges around crime on the Southend and this reputation for being dangerous. So outside of Peoria, people talk a lot of shit about Peoria, which is also how Durham is. But when you get to Peoria, the people who have been there their whole life absolutely love it. They have a pride and passion for the city that you can feel right away. And so that resonated with me.
Peoria is also a lot like Durham when tobacco left. Peoria was the headquarters of Caterpillar for about 100 years. Caterpillar was a Fortune 50 company and a large portion of the nation’s GDP. So this massive enterprise headquartered there was basically the whole economy. I got the job after CAT was gone and had to help [the city] reimagine what economic development could look like when you don’t have a big employer. We helped build a strategy for them that just reimagined how their economy could function. We created a collective impact approach to workforce development. So rather than having just a few entities doing things in silos, we brought 60 entities together that included business, government, educational institutions, nonprofits, all to build a strategy to solve this problem, to get people to work, to keep companies in Peoria. And what I think their next phase is going to be is attracting companies to Peoria. Durham doesn’t have this problem, which is, people want to live in Durham now. But when I was there and started at the chamber, that wasn’t necessarily the case. It was becoming the case. But we talked a lot about getting the right talent into the city, and I was able to apply that in Peoria. Peoria is not a place that a top-tier college graduate necessarily has on their list in the Midwest to move to. So, thinking creatively about incentive programs to get the talent to move there ultimately resulted in business relocating there. What excited me about it was there were people that I knew who were making career-sustaining wages because of the work that we did. It’s cool to see folks go from barely getting by to having benefits and 30 bucks an hour and living more comfortably.
And what about Glendale? You were only there for a year, but it’s significantly different from Peoria and even Durham. So what takeaways do you have from your experience in Glendale that you can apply here?
What was missing from the puzzle for me in Peoria was the large-scale economic development that I also enjoy, because there’s just not a market for that today. Glendale is a super fast-growing place. I relate Glendale to Durham too, because Glendale shares a 40-mile-long border with the city of Phoenix but has always been considered the stepchild in the Phoenix metro compared to Scottsdale, the shiny place on the east side of Phoenix. But Glendale is a super diverse community. Glendale also had a reputation for being dangerous—all the things that go along with this racial connotation that relates to cities. Glendale has some of that. But what Glendale also has is the State Farm Stadium, which is where the Cardinals play and where I went to see Kendrick [Lamar] last week. So this is a massive, massive facility. So what city leaders have done in Glendale inspires me, because it’s a great example of how government can help catalyze an economy and improve the quality of life for everybody.
Durham’s mayor has talked frequently about wanting to build a new convention center. We won’t be hosting any NFL teams like in Glendale, but it would obviously have an impact on the local economy. So what do you think Durham’s economic drivers should be, and what creative ideas do you have for how to build Durham’s economy for the next 10 to 20 years?
I think Durham’s economic drivers have always been the same: it is our culture. I hate to use the word “diversity” so much, because it’s such a cliché term. Me and Dasan [Ahanu] always use the term “mosaic” in our raps about Durham. A lot of cities say they have it, but Durham really has it, bro. Not saying that Durham is perfect and fully integrated and everyone’s thriving at the same level. There are issues around race and identity, but that mosaic is an economic driver, because people want to live in places like that. People want to be a part of a community where they can be fully themselves, and businesses need to locate where people want to live. So the more that we can invest in quality of life, embrace who we are and not try to be anybody else, the better. I had someone say to me, sorry to my friends in Charlotte, but they would say that the great thing about Durham is that in the state of North Carolina, Raleigh wants to be Charlotte, Charlotte wants to be Atlanta, but Durham just wants to be Durham. But as we started to grow, I kind of felt people saying maybe we could do this thing that they’re doing over in Raleigh, or maybe we can do this thing that Charlotte is doing, but Durham has always been unique, and the more we can keep that authenticity that has made us special, that’s a massive economic driver for us. The stadium project you mentioned, and the mayor’s thoughts about civic centers, those things do work, but we have to do them in the correct way and in a way that’s authentic.
We already know we have the intelligence and the talent in the Triangle. We got Duke, Central, Carolina, [NC] State, and other HBCUs close by. But the secret sauce for companies is they want to be in a place where that talent enjoys living and so we just have to solve some of our challenges around equity and inclusion so people can enjoy living there and afford to live there and feel safe living there.
What’s the first place you’re going to eat when you get back in town?
I don’t know what places are still popping. Some of my favorites are gone. I used to love to go to COPA, and I think they’re gone. I used to love to go to Pompieri Pizza. I think they’re gone, so I don’t know, man. M Sushi is still there, right?
M Sushi is still kickin’.
My wife and I talked about this. We used to get this fire salad from Geer Street Garden all the time. And the wings were fire. So yeah, there’s plenty of eating to do when I get back. I’m excited to get a feel for what is a familiar place, but I’m sure that’s also really different in so many ways. It sounds strange to say, but I got a lot to learn about Durham.
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