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And just for full disclosure....when I talk about Birmingham, I am talking about over the mountain (Hoover/Vestavia). Most of the places people here mentioned like Ensley, Bessemer, etc. are complete crap. Everybody who lives in Birmingham knows it and that's why they never go there. Birmingham has done an excellent job with socio-economic segregation, which is probably rooted in actual segregation. But the one neat thing about it is, you don't have to worry about the rough parts of Vestavia or Mountain Brook because they simply do not exist. Birmingham truly does have a right and wrong side of the tracks. It may seem myopic to some, but the good thing is once you are on the right side, you don't have anything to worry about, and you'd have precious little reason to ever venture to the wrong side. There is simply nothing there that doesn't exist on the right side.
Of course, this is not to say Birmingham isn't more backward. You want good Indian food? Tough luck. Korean supermarkets? Unlikely. Want to seek Wicked? It ain't stopping in Birmingham.
Well at least the land's cheap and the taxes are super low, eh?
The sales tax is 10% and there is an county-wide income tax.
Lived in Birmingham for 1 year before moving to Atlanta. It was okay, but there is zero public transit in Birmingham. Traffic along the 280 corridor is horrible. The only thing I miss are the mountains and BBQ. Other than that the area is crappy, with bad roads and little night-life.
I went to Birmingham once last year. I remember this one street I was driving on I passed a house that had a sign that said "we will pay you to live here".
Wow! I was going to check that very thing before I said a word and made an a$$ out of myself, but I thought, "don't worry, there's no way Wicked is going to Birmingham!"
Boy, is my face red. Perhaps the city has gotten more viable than I thought over the years.
Incidentally, one of the reasons I lived in the suburbs of Atlanta before moving intown was because of Birmingham. Pretty much nobody lives downtown, and I just figured that's the way southern cities were. I never even considered that people lived in midtown in Atlanta. I just knew Buckhead, and equated it to Southside, where the bars and night life are...well, what passes at night life, anyway.
So you can't really judge Birmingham by downtown, there's no action there at all. It would be akin to judging Atlanta by staying at an airport hotel.
I'm not even sure what goes on downtown Birmingham. I assume some people commute down there and just leave straight after work. I say I assume because I never even knew anybody who worked down there, a lot of the good jobs are in the aforementioned over the mountain burbs.
Comparing Birmingham and Atlanta Skylines is like comparing Atlanta's to NYC.
If Atlanta was so greater than Birmingham, why would you show a close up picture of Bham less than a half a mile away and show the ATL a number of miles away? At least don't distort your photos.
If Atlanta was so greater than Birmingham, why would you show a close up picture of Bham less than a half a mile away and show the ATL a number of miles away? At least don't distort your photos.
I think that it probably has to do with the fact that Atlanta's skyline is one that is elongated, whereby one can't get the entire skyline within a close-up shot. Atlanta is one of a handful of cities where this is the case.
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