Durham, North Carolina
Brody McLendon, 3, leads his father, Justin McLendon across the stone bridge that runs over the river through the American Tobacco Campus in Durham, NC. American Tobacco’s Lucky Strike factory shut down in 1987—the most visible symbol of Durham’s industrial decline. It sat vacant for 17 years before reopening as a mixed-use complex with restaurants, offices, apartments, and an artificial river. It took a massive public-private partnership to convert the property, which now includes part of the American Underground tech hub.