Alabamian Calls ATL 'Totally Out of Control' and Eroding (Atlanta: unemployment, university)

[mcalumni01]

Originally Posted by magnetar

Speaking of stuck in the past... you honestly still think the number of freeways has anything to do with the vitality of a city?

The reason people think Huntsville is becoming more important than Birmingham has everything to do with the way the city is developing into a small high-tech hub. Birmingham is still most famous for government corruption, unfortunately.

The biggest problem Huntsville has to face is the same thing Birmingham does, though—a national (and worldwide) perception of Alabama as a racist backwater, a perception that the current state government is not doing much to fix.

That's part of the reason I moved to Atlanta from Mobile.

mobile....enough said, thats why you moved. see what people fail to do is they recognize huntsville as developing into this and that but when speaking of birmingham people dont recognize whats happening there but yet bring up all the negative past issues that clearly no longer exists. like huntsville havent came from negativity like any other city. if you going make a case between the two, at least put forward the same criteria for both and not praise one and downgrade the other. if people did any type of research....this would be a no brainer.

[bigstick]

Originally Posted by mcalumni01

mobile....enough said, thats why you moved. see what people fail to do is they recognize huntsville as developing into this and that but when speaking of birmingham people dont recognize whats happening there but yet bring up all the negative past issues that clearly no longer exists. like huntsville havent came from negativity like any other city. if you going make a case between the two, at least put forward the same criteria for both and not praise one and downgrade the other. if people did any type of research....this would be a no brainer.

No doubt things are happening in BHAM, it's about time, ya think?? Anyway they are trying to play catch up, although at a snail's pace, to Nashville, which will never happen, or Charlotte, and not in a lifetime to Atlanta. Next time proper punctuation would be helpful.

[AtlantaIsHot]

Originally Posted by mcalumni01

Innovation and Technology | Birmingham Business Alliance

and those are just 2 of the areas in birmingham....they didn't mention the top construction companies (by the way, many of atlanta's buildings and even the braves new stadium is being built by a birmingham company), top steel companies, top soda bottling companies, some of the state top companies headquartered in birmingham...i could go on and on and on.....

Well you can go on and on and on with civic pride till the cows come home. I never stated anything bad about Birmingham. I didn't even state that Birmingham had no high tech industries. I simply stated that Huntsville is the center of NASA and rocket science development and that it had reaped benefits from it. That is a fact. I didn't say that Birmingham didn't. Everything I stated was true. Birmingham has been somewhat sluggish compared to other southern rivals in growth. Census data show that to be true. Birmingham grew 10% from 1990 to 2000. Atlanta grew 37% during that decade. Charlotte grew 30%. Nashville grew 25%. The census estimates from 2010 and on to 2014 show a slowing even from that. Birmingham has added an estimated 15,000 between 2010 and 2014. Huntsville, although much smaller, added 24,000 during same period. Noticing factual data about a city does not mean people are "slamming it" even though it might hurt. It's a fact that Detroit and Pittsburgh and Cleveland are slow growth to decline. It's not wrong to say it.


As for Birmingham companies building the stadium for the Braves and Atlanta buildings, my only response is good for Birmingham that it has companies of that kind of stature. If Birmingham is reviving, I'm happy. It is a city with lots of character as it is the Pittsburgh of the south.

[mcalumni01]

Originally Posted by AtlantaIsHot

Well you can go on and on and on with civic pride till the cows come home. I never stated anything bad about Birmingham. I didn't even state that Birmingham had no high tech industries. I simply stated that Huntsville is the center of NASA and rocket science development and that it had reaped benefits from it. That is a fact. I didn't say that Birmingham didn't. Everything I stated was true. Birmingham has been somewhat sluggish compared to other southern rivals in growth. Census data show that to be true. Birmingham grew 10% from 1990 to 2000. Atlanta grew 37% during that decade. Charlotte grew 30%. Nashville grew 25%. The census estimates from 2010 and on to 2014 show a slowing even from that. Birmingham has added an estimated 15,000 between 2010 and 2014. Huntsville, although much smaller, added 24,000 during same period. Noticing factual data about a city does not mean people are "slamming it" even though it might hurt. It's a fact that Detroit and Pittsburgh and Cleveland are slow growth to decline. It's not wrong to say it.

As for Birmingham companies building the stadium for the Braves and Atlanta buildings, my only response is good for Birmingham that it has companies of that kind of stature. If Birmingham is reviving, I'm happy. It is a city with lots of character as it is the Pittsburgh of the south.

Of course you are not going to say it's not about saying anything bad. Anybody with any common sense can read between the lines. Just like now you want to point out the slow growth of b'ham while at the same time say huntsville is the center of nasa and rocket science development. what else do you know about huntsville besides that. what other industries are their known for? do you know the major industries in birmingham? probably neither. you have your own little opinion about both base on past information. And adding that little statement at the end proves to me that you don't know whats going on.

[mcalumni01]

Originally Posted by bigstick

No doubt things are happening in BHAM, it's about time, ya think?? Anyway they are trying to play catch up, although at a snail's pace, to Nashville, which will never happen, or Charlotte, and not in a lifetime to Atlanta. Next time proper punctuation would be helpful.

n/a

[jero23]

Originally Posted by cdw1084

Birmingham isn't even the leading city in Alabama, true it may be the largest but Huntsville is leading the pack so I would worry about Huntsville before worrying about Atlanta.

Originally Posted by magnetar

Heh, I was just coming here to say this. There's not much point in worrying about what Atlanta's doing when Huntsville is quickly becoming the top tier city in their state.

Uh, I'm a Birmingham native, and that is so not true. Birmingham still isn't checking for Huntsville because it's a federal government town and it's kind of hard to thrive when its main jobs are tied to an US Army outpost (Redstone Arsenal). NASA doesn't have much of a presence in Huntsville outside of the Marshall Space Center which more of a tourist attraction these days something to do with actual space rocket research. Most of those jobs shifted to Houston years ago.

[jero23]

Originally Posted by bigstick

Birmingham is basically a larger Jackson, MS....Article is hilarious and moronic.

I wouldn't go that far. Those 2 cities are in 2 different lanes from one another. One is growing (Birmingham) and the other (Jackson) is just well just the capital of a mostly agrarian state.

[jero23]

Originally Posted by cdw1084

Well Charlotte is in the 2nd Tier along with Nashville, Orlando, and Tampa so if anything I can understand why these cities want to grow a little different than Atlanta.

Birmingham, on the other hand, is losing population in the city, probably will lose the "largest city in Alabama" title within the next 20 years and is battling Huntsville for the state supremacy. Once the census bureau decides to accurately call Huntsville and Decatur a MSA instead of CSA, it will be interesting to see how much longer they can hold Huntsville off..

It's hard to imagine that Atlanta and Birmingham was nearly the same size in the 60's but an odd thing about the article is the fact that it mentions race division in Fulton County but if the writer would take a deeper look, then he or she can blame Birmingham,the State of Alabama and their race relations for Birmingham's stagnation. Don't point blame at Atlanta over some minor issues because more people move to Atlanta in 18 months than will move to Alabama in a decade.

A very envious article.

Uh, Birmingham is not battling Huntsville for state supremacy. Birmingham has a diversified economic base; whereas Huntsville is basically a government town. BRAC is having some unusual affects on Huntsville in ways that is forcing its economy to contract more than grow as of late. Like Columbus, Huntsville was banking on its population to grow rapidly because BRAC but it didn't. Also there has been talks that Redstone Arsenal may wind up losing more jobs thus slowing down its growth. I think you are taking that piece a little too far and clouding your judge and analysis...

[mcalumni01]

jero23...

been trying to explain to these people why huntsville ain't close to being on the same level as b'ham. the first thing everbody says about talking up huntsville is "NASA...rocket science".....i didn't wanna bust their bubbles but if they did any research they would know most of those jobs transfered to houston...so that industry is on the decline there. but people have such negativity toward bham that is clouds their better judgment.

[AtlantaIsHot]

Originally Posted by jero23

Uh, Birmingham is not battling Huntsville for state supremacy. Birmingham has a diversified economic base; whereas Huntsville is basically a government town. BRAC is having some unusual affects on Huntsville in ways that is forcing its economy to contract more than grow as of late. Like Columbus, Huntsville was banking on its population to grow rapidly because BRAC but it didn't. Also there has been talks that Redstone Arsenal may wind up losing more jobs thus slowing down its growth. I think you are taking that piece a little too far and clouding your judge and analysis...

Insulting Huntsville is no different than those insulting Birmingham... Huntsville's not in dire straights... It's the fastest growing larger city in Alabama and has been for quite some time. It also possesses the highest per capita number of science and technology engineers in the country. It's not going downhill and it's unemployment rate is low.

Good economic news headlines from Huntsville:

Want a job at the new Polaris plant? Off-road vehicle maker hiring in Huntsville | AL.com

Huntsville only steadily growing large city in Alabama | AL.com