"What's with those people in Durham?" one of my Raleigh colleagues asked me recently. "They've got the good restaurants. They have the baseball team. The city is way cooler than Raleigh. Why do they whine so much?"

Durham boosters tend to think the Bull City never gets enough credit for its Great Things, and gets overblown publicity for its crime. (They also think the airport should be called Durham-Raleigh International.)

Fact is, the city down the road that is the target of much of Durham's envy has hit a rough patch lately. Raleigh has experienced a rash of homicides (23 so far this year as of midweek, compared with 14 in Durham) and a shopping-mall ruckus last weekend that police blamed on gangs.

Stifle the smugness, though. Plenty of bad actors still prowl the streets of Durham, and one bad month can drive the crime statistics up in a hurry.

Still, the boosters have a point. There's no shortage of suburbanites in Wake County and elsewhere who are quick to take ill-informed cheap shots at Durham.

Whining does no good, though. People tune it out, so let's stop. Ignore the ill-informed morons. Instead, I suggest going on the offensive with a positive message. Durham is indeed way cooler than Raleigh. Or Charlotte or Greensboro or Cary or almost anywhere else. Focus on that.

But let's focus also on crime and poverty -- real problems, even if not unique to Durham. The city suffers because of them. They need fixing.

How? Make the people who account for most of the crime -- poor teenagers and young men -- employable, with education and training. Then come up with the jobs to make them employed.

It's as simple and difficult as that.