Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Chapel Hill is located in Durham and Orange Counties in North Carolina. This town houses the oldest state university in the United States, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The town is included in the prestigious Research Triangle, together with Durham and Raleigh, a region wherein the population is among the most educated in the United States, with one of the highest numbers of Ph.D.’s per capita. Chapel Hill is classified as a college town or university town, wherein the neighborhood is dominated by its university population and many local residents may be employed by the university. Most of the population are politically liberal and is very much well-known for the quality of its school system. One of the greatest treasures of Chapel Hill is its popular music scene and is home to some of the best clubs in the United States for live music: Cat’s Cradle, the Cave, Local 506 and Reservoir. Popular musicians like James Taylor, Ben Folds Five, and George Hamilton IV have their careers debuted at Chapel Hill. Other famous acts who toured in Chapel Hill are Bruce Springsteen and U2.

American cuisine has been ultimately challenged and reinvented in Chapel Hill, thanks to its entrepreneur-friendly environment, a lot of its establishments have reaped media attention like Foster’s Market as featured in Martha Stewart’s Living, Caffe Driade and The Cackalacky Classic Condiment Company as featured in Rachael Ray, Food Network, Comedy Central, Public Radio International, and The Lantern Restaurant as featured in Food and Wine Magazine. Aside from its majestic markets and restaurants, Chapel Hill is also a place for the greatest independent coffee shops like Joe Van Gogh, Franklin Sweets, 3 Cups and Padgett Station. People’s love for intellect and food can also be equated with their obsession with sports, especially with basketball and soccer, fueled by the rivalry among North Carolina’s four Atlantic Coast Conference Teams.

The Chapel Hill actually sits atop a hill when it was first occupied by a small chapel built in 1752, known as the New Hope Chapel. In 1851, the town was chartered. One of the greatest milestones that Chapel Hill has done in the political system is for becoming the first predominantly white municipality in the country to elect an African American Mayor, Howard Lee. Some of the notable residents of Chapel Hill are Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter James Taylor, Senators Frank Porter Graham and John Reid Edwards, basketball player Michael Jordan, authors Sarah Dessen, Mary Pope Osborne, K.A. Applegate, and Nick Perumov, comedian Lewis Black and computer science pioneer Fred Brooks.