Wilmington de school: Springer Middle School / Homepage

The rest of the city is a low-rise private building, organized into streets of a regular layout. At the same time, the space of the city is cut into two equal parts by highway No. 95, and the business center of the city is located to the east of it. In the western part of the city, there were once ethnic quarters of migrants from Europe (primarily Italians and Irish). Until recently, there were no apartment buildings in Wilmington, but in the mid-2000s, complex 9 was built in the south of the city (on the right bank of the Christine River). 0007 The Residences at Christina Landing , consisting of two 20-story towers. The residential complex was built opposite the waterfront of the Christine River, the place where the development of the city began, which is now a popular leisure destination.

North Wilmington and beyond, along the Brandywine River and the road to Philadelphia, is a park complex, a number of suburban cottages, and a variety of recreational facilities. The industrial and warehouse zone of Wilmington is its eastern outskirts, up to the Delaware River.

Population

The population of Wilmington within the administrative boundaries of the city is about 75 thousand inhabitants, together with the suburbs (County of Newcastle) – up to 500 thousand. Although three-quarters of Delaware’s population is white, Wilmington, like many other cities in the US Northeast, is dominated by blacks, accounting for 56% of the population in the 2000 census. Persons of Hispanic origin now make up about 10% of the population, and half of them were not born in the United States. The rest of the population is white, mostly descendants of long-standing waves of European immigration. In the 2000 census, answers to the question about ancestry were distributed as follows: Irish (9%), Italians (6%), Germans (5%), British (4%), Poles (4%). In Wilmington, there are communities of descendants of emigrants from different countries, ethnic festivals are held.

Wilmington’s social problems are also typical of cities in the Northeast of the United States and are associated mainly with the Negro population. Every fifth inhabitant of the city and every sixth family live below the poverty line, the problem is the high level of crime (especially serious crimes, a record 27 murders in 2010), the spread of drug addiction and HIV. The city has one of the highest HIV infection rates in the United States, and the carriers of the virus are mostly young people who use drugs. The city authorities initiate various programs to improve the social situation in Wilmington.

Economy

Headquarters of Hercules Inc. , built in 1982

Wilmington is home to the headquarters of chemical companies DuPont and Hercules, a number of representative offices of multinational financial corporations. In 1981, the Delaware state government passed a law that removed restrictions on interest rates on consumer loans. This has attracted a number of credit card companies to the city, such as Bank of America, Chase Card Services and Barclays. The internet banking division of ING Groep N.V., a Dutch holding company, ING Direct, is headquartered in Wilmington. There are also offices of a number of insurance companies.

In 1988, the Delaware legislature passed a law requiring that at least 85% of the shares must be redeemed immediately, or the purchase must be made no earlier than three years later, in order to acquire the shares of any state-registered company. This protection against hostile takeovers also contributed to Wilmington’s popularity as a place of business registration.

The state has also eliminated the sales tax in Delaware, boosting retail sales in the state. There are two large malls in Wilmington (Concord and Christin), a number of shopping complexes are located in the interior of the state, the transit flow to them passes through Wilmington.

There are no large industrial enterprises in the city itself, but there are some significant factories not far from Wilmington. So in the city of Claymont to the north of the city there is a special steel plant owned by the Russian company Evraz (built in the late 1980s), to the southeast of the city in the port town of Delaware (after the name of the state) there is an oil refinery of the Valero company. It and the large Sunoco refinery located near Philadelphia are the main fuel suppliers for Wilmington’s gas stations. On the bank of the river Delaware north of the mouth of the Christine River is a DuPont titanium dioxide plant, west of the city is a General Motors assembly plant (built in 1947). At this enterprise, which now employs more than 1,500 people, Bob Marley worked for some time.

Transportation

The distance from Wilmington to Philadelphia on Highway 95 is about 30 km, due to which there is intensive daily migration of the population between the two cities. There is, however, significant transit traffic along the highway, as it links all the major cities on the US East Coast. The state authorities tried to solve this problem by building at the end of 1970’s wider bypass road in the eastern industrial part of the city (No. 495). However, an attempt to remove the transit traffic from Wilmington was unsuccessful, in 1982, Route 95 returned to its original place. Subsequently, the city authorities abandoned the idea of ​​removing the transit federal highway from the city. To the south, into the depths of the Delaware Peninsula, a local highway departs, which leads to the state capital, the city of Dover.

Wilmington railroad played a big role until the mid 1950s. Later, with the increase in motorization and the construction of highways, its role decreased, since the route of Highway No. 95 ran completely parallel to the traditional railway line along the coast. Amtrak trains, departing from the only station in the city (located in the southern part of the center, near the river Christine), connect Wilmington with Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington and Boston. A significant proportion of rail traffic is occupied by freight traffic – large warehouses are located to the northeast and west of the city. To the east of Wilmington are the Amtrak car repair shops.

To the east of the city at the Christine Estuary is the seaport of Wilmington, which handles up to 400 ships annually and handles imported cargo by rail or road.

Intracity public transport appeared in Wilmington in 1864, it was a horse car. In 1880, a tram was launched, in 1939-40 it was replaced by a trolleybus. Trolleybus traffic in the city ceased in 1957 after the population left the center for the suburbs, the demolition of residential areas and the construction of a business center in their place. Now intracity transportation is carried out by 40 routes of the municipal bus. They also connect the city with the suburbs and some nearby large cities. During the summer, there are flights to beaches in the south of the state.

Newcastle Airport (formerly Wilmington Airport) is located southwest of the city, but like many smaller airports, it is used only by corporate and sports aviation and as a National Guard base. The closest scheduled airport to Wilmington is Philadelphia International Airport.

Education and Science

There are five universities (including the University of Wilmington and the University of Delaware) and four colleges in and around the city. Wilmington is home to one of DuPont’s three global R&D centers.

Sports

Wilmington has local basketball and baseball clubs, but they have not been very successful and play in regional leagues.

Culture and attractions

The city center, which was reconstructed in the 1950s, has almost no historical buildings. One of the few exceptions is the building of the railway station and several surviving quarters near the river embankment. Christine. Among the buildings of the business center, the headquarters of DuPont (the so-called Brandywine building) is interesting, featuring original architecture, and reconstructed in 1950s, but retaining the original interior of the hall, the DuPont Hotel, which first opened in 1913. Multi-storey office buildings built in the 1970s and 1990s are designed in the “glass-cube” style, typical of most business districts of the world’s cities.

Wilmington has many churches, the oldest of which is the Holy Trinity Church, built by Swedish colonists in 1698, which has been in continuous use (and not rebuilt) since then.

Of interest is the Hagley Museum to the north of the city, established in 1957 on the site of the old DuPont gunpowder factory. The museum tells about the history of the formation of American industry and the company’s business, the life of workers of that time.