Birmingham Southside crime (Fairfield, Valley, York: smog, insurance, job)

[urbups]

WOW!
I'm loving these heartfelt (and detailed) posts! It's what people who are more interested in solutions rather than just blindly repeating old thought forms need to do. It seems that this topic of crime in 21st century Bham which automatically includes the thorny issues of race, class, exploitation, idealism and so much else, is ripe fruit for the eating! I'll just briefly say a few of the many things that ran through my mind as I read phlegmatico (?!what a handle), harry, and aquemini (does somebody like Outkast?).

Phlegmatico: I'd love to share some of the things happening here in Norwood with you. Change here in Intown Birmingham is like watching grass grow, but for those paying attention there are some great things popping.......oppps, family duties call. Stay tuned.

[AQUEMINI331]

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not but I will say this - these issues that hurt Birmingham so much - crime, poverty, classism, old money and the old guard and the old way of doing things - need to be addressed or else Birmingham will fade into oblivion like another Detroit or New Orleans. Many already think Birmingham's turned that corner and has gone beyond the point of no return, but I disagree. The city is still salvagable, there's still hope. Birmingham has some redeemable qualities. Southside is actually one of those qualities. It's basically the only hint of "hip", urban life available in the state (unless you consider dodging bullets and staying indoors at night urban life). But people don't understand that cities can and in fact, do die - if the people down there don't do something, the city WILL fade into nothing - but people in Birmingham seem to lack a sense of urgency about trying to get off of their asses and doing anything. The city's motto might as well be, "same ****, different day." For those of you upset at san for saying what he said, don't be. It's true and shouldn't surprise anyone native to the area. Do something about it. I'd do something about it, but hell I don't live there anymore and I'm seriously considering never returning. But I guess that would cause me to be labeled as one of those bad people that leaves their community and forgets where they come from. To that I say, hate me if you want to but I'm not about to waste the prime years of my life trying to decorate a sinking ship. What's even worse is that half of the people onboard don't know the ship is sinking - the other half are denying that a problem exists at all even though know that it does. That is Birmingham in a nutshell.



BTW, I'm a HUGE OutKast fan. I remember sometimes I'd drive from here back to Birmingham listening to nothing but their first three albums and never got tired of it. It's a 10 hour drive from Chicago to Birmingham.

[Bravo35223]

Birmingham's primary problem is the complete absence of political leadership in the mayor's office and city council.

Period.

Bernard Kincaid is a 'do nothing' mayor who had not had a single meaningful program to move the city forward. The City Council is extraordinarily ineffective. As a result of this, the City of Birmingham is shrinking.

In the meantime, the suburbs flourish, with good/excellent schools, effective police and fire departments and responsive local government. I know dozens of people who have moved here from all parts of the U.S., the UK, Iran, Jordan and other countries who all live in the suburbs and are very happy with their quality of life, schools and local government...

I have known people from the following cities who have moved to Birmingham's suburbs for one dominant reason: To educate their children in public schools. To save thousands of $$ every year on private school tuition. These people have moved here from: Savannah Georgia, Mobile, Alabama, New Orleans (I know at least five of these and they came well before Katrina), Dallas, and Cincinnati.

A guy who works in the office next to mine grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from USC....he started his career there and then moved to Phoenix where he lived for several years. He then took a job here. He's got two young children and lives in Hoover. He loves it here...says he's never leaving. Bought two lots on Smith Lake and is going to move into Mountain Brook by the time his kids enter first grade.

A college friend of mine moved from Dallas and said he was saving $16,000 per year. My friend from Savannah had three kids and saved over $20,000 per year. (His kids went onto the University of Richmond and the University of Texas at Austin) Another friend just got relocated to Jackson Mississippi and said he had "sticker shock" over the cost of educating two children: $19,000 per year. When he lived in the Birmingham suburbs, it was $0.

Now onto Mountain Brook - where I have lived all my life.

San put up a bunch of anecdotal stories that would lead the reader to think that everyone in Mountain Brook is a racist snob who is independently wealthy....that Mountain Brook holds back the metro area through some sort of plantation mentality.

This is crap.

Yes, there are independently wealthy people here - who inherited it all and never have to worry about working. I grew up with several people like this. On the main, these families are EXTREMELY charitable (literally) and give a tremendous amount of money to the United Way, which supports dozens of needy local social service organizations. The Alexis de Toqueville Society conists of local residents who commit to giving at least $10,000 EVERY YEAR to the United Way. The Birmingham chapter of this organization is one of the largest in the US and largely consists of many Mountain Brook residents.

This is FACT - objective data....not some sort of anecdotal story about one of San's racist relatives.

Another FACT:

In Governor Bob Riley's first term of office - he put forth a sweeping tax reform package that would have reshaped the way the state taxed it's citizens, shifting less of the load on the poor and more onto the wealthy.

In BIRMINGHAM, in the lower income areas of the city that would have benefitted from this new law - voters turned it down.

In Mountain Brook - where citizens would have undoubtedly paid MORE taxes - the majority of residents voted FOR the proposal....one of a handful of cities in the ENTIRE STATE to vote YES. Sorry San, this is not Mountain Brook holding the city and state back - it's demonstrated Progressive and Forward Thinking Leadership from well educated voters.

When Chris McNair was running for Senate, where did he get the highest percentage of votes for him vs his opponent? In Mountain Brook.

Sorry San: These are all FACTS.

Let me share one other fact of life with you:

In every city, there is old money and that old money will always have a certain degree of power to weld. Birmingham is only 125 years old. It is one of America's youngest metro areas.

Go to NY, go to Chicago, go to Philadelphia or LA and you will find Old Money there, in a much bigger way than in Birmingham. These people all are independently wealthy and as a result can act whatever way they want to.

You need to bring factual information to this board....not a bunch of subjective, anecdotal drivel.

[AQUEMINI331]

^ What you said is what's already known. It is important to hear san's side of the story because this is the side that's not going to be published in the Birmingham News or seen on FOX 6. What you said IS common knowledge (or at least I would think it is). What's not common knowledge is that there's still some racist people over the mountain. What may not be common knowledge is that according to the 2000 Census, Mountain Brook had a black population of 0.31%. That's about 60 blacks - but the city has a population of 20,821. 60 people out of 20,000 might as well be 0%. Even blacks who can afford MB choose not to live there. I'm black and grew up in Birmingham - most blacks in the city do not feel comfortable in Mountain Brook, but have no qualms about going to Hoover, Shelby County, or even Vestavia. Just not Mountain Brook.

[harry chickpea]

"Are you serious? Last time I was in Birmingham I heard about a baby not yet two years old shot dead in his living room in North Birmingham. Not to mention on the news that night was the trial of a man who shot and killed three people at a hotel near the airport. Not to mention the fact that Birmingham somehow manages to post a higher homicide rate than virtually every major city in the United States, including Miami, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, you name it. As a matter of fact the only three cities that have higher murder rates than Birmingham are Gary, IN, Detroit, and Flint, MI, in that order."

A request, Aquemini. Long paragraphs are very difficult to parse. You make great points that can get lost in them. If you can shorten them, and focus each on an extended thought, your readership will appreciate it. I used to do the same thing, and it was the ability to edit on the computer that helped me.

To the subject: "Am I kidding?" No. I've driven through most of Birmingham. In some areas I've been uncomfortable, but found that those areas are physically smaller than those in Miami. I don't discount the problem or the rates of crime you quote, but I find the sheer size of the problem areas in Miami to be more intimidating. I could get killed by a single crazy neighbor in the country, but living next to 10,000 crazy neighbors ups the ante.

I'll also agree that Atlanta has become a type of Mecca for many blacks. The influences of the Kings, the concept of the eastern megalopolis, and other factors have taken that city out of the deep south and placed it as an east coast city that just happens to not have an ocean view. In exchange for that growth, a visit to Atlanta can regale the visitor with the same abrupt rudeness of New York, traffic that is far worse than the Birmingham area, and the hustle that seems to permeate most metropolitan areas.

We all learn to see the problems in various areas, and we can often start with a fresh slate in a different locale. I could tell you of problems I've seen in many places, some of them common, some of them unusual. Of all of the problems, I think that the worst is the one of education. With a good education, and even a modicum of good luck, most people can escape the worst situations. While I have seen it said that Alabama has inferior schools, and I agree that they are limited and biased, I will say flat out that south Florida schools are FAR FAR worse. I can almost guarantee that if you had grown up in Miami instead of the Birmingham area, you (or Sam) would not be able to express yourself or your displeasures as well as you do.

[Bravo35223]

Originally Posted by AQUEMINI331

^ What you said is what's already known. It is important to hear san's side of the story because this is the side that's not going to be published in the Birmingham News or seen on FOX 6. What you said IS common knowledge (or at least I would think it is). What's not common knowledge is that there's still some racist people over the mountain. What may not be common knowledge is that according to the 2000 Census, Mountain Brook had a black population of 0.31%. That's about 60 blacks - but the city has a population of 20,821. 60 people out of 20,000 might as well be 0%. Even blacks who can afford MB choose not to live there. I'm black and grew up in Birmingham - most blacks in the city do not feel comfortable in Mountain Brook, but have no qualms about going to Hoover, Shelby County, or even Vestavia. Just not Mountain Brook.

There are indeed very few black people in Mountain Brook. I met the father of a black teenage girl who is in my daughter's class at Mountain Brook High School. I asked him to be frank with me and tell me what his experience had been like....

He told me his neighbors had all been very friendly and he hadn't a peep of problems with any of them. He said he was pleased with the education his daughter was getting but frankly said he wished there were more black people in the community. I could understand this! My daughter told me her daughter is popular and has plenty of friends.

Now I cannot tell you why more black people do not choose to live here, but there is certainly no 'conspiracy' to keep them out. Of the families that live in MB, I havn't heard a word about neighbors selling their homes because a black family moved in. MB has become integrated without a single sound being emitted from the community.

Frankly Vestavia and MB are very similar. I have many, many friends in Vestavia and my brother lives there. As to why black people pick Vestavia over MB is a mystery to me bc frankly there's not a hill of beans difference between the two....people have the same attitude about schools, crime, local government, real estate values etc...

Now I'll tell you the reverse story.

This past summer, my daughter had to take two summer school courses to make up bad grades. In Jefferson County, summer school courses are held at Shades Valley High School for ALL school systems....so my daughter is in class with students from all over the county.

When several of the students heard she was from Mountain Brook - they treated her like crap. After the first few experiences, she made sure she told noone where she was from....

These classes were six weeks long, five hours a day. My daughter made an A in both classes and told me two things: Many of the students slept in class and both of her teachers liked her because she paid attention and was respectful.

I am SICK of the stereotypes about Mountain Brook and it is people like you and San who can provide NO FACTS, but just a bunch of anecdotal information that perpetrate it.

I can tell you this....ask Chris McNair who supported him when he ran for office. Ask him where is campaign contributions came from. A ton of $$ came from Mountain Brook people who believed in him....and I still cannot understand how he was convicted. MB people saw a man whose daughter was a tragic victim of racism and he chose to overcome that and serve the community...

[urbups]

First, just to make sure that the sside crime issue is kept in mind, i'll repeat that whoever wants to live there should talk to people living on their block to know what's happening. I've met several people over the years who talked about being broken into on the Southside and there's definitely frustration building around crime in 5PS. That said, SSide neigborhoods will have the most yuppies, hipsters, students, etc. of any in the city of Bham. That said, If you are willing to pay the fare, downtown is turning into complete yup-ville and the statistics say its crime rate is similar to M Brooks or Vestavia's.


Harry Chickpea and Bravo35223 have pretty much summarized some of my questions with Phlegmatico's comments. I have no problem believeing that his family members made those comments (and indeed these are the types of things many blacks imagine whites saying in private. Did his dad actually call the domestic lady "Mops"? WTF! I think there were more than a few problems in that house.) and whether intentional or not there seems to be a some type of forcefield around the villages of M Brook that say "Keep out, those who don't belong" that I noticed when I first moved to Bham from Atl. I didn't feel the same thing going through Buckhead's neighborhoods.

My actual experience with Mountain Brookers is closer to that Harry Chickpea and Bravo35233 talk about. My wife is the director for a non-profit largely funded by M Brook residents that works toward neighborhood improvement in Norwood. I'm a Unitarian and several of the members are M Brookers and are very open minded and "liberal".

I agree with Aquenimi that many Bham natives are too slow moving,too accepting of things like trash on the streets, not agressive enough about taking advantage of the opportunities here. It's frustrating for me too. I've thought about how I might be able to live better in richer cities like Austin or Charlotte or Nashville. I'm here for the duration though.

Like Aquenimi I'm a Statistics-geek and I pay attn to the reports in the pape. At the same time I actually live in what the uninformed and ignorant consider a bad area and have boots-on-the-ground experiences to combine with the statistics:

I don't have a security sy'tm for house or car.
I have mistakingly left home and car doors unlock and even open for extended periods of time.
My wife works in the Norwood area and sometimes has to leave work late at night.
For the past two years I have operated a part time business largely from home and receive packages on my porch regularly when I am not at home.
I actively seek out the crime experiences of my neighbors.
I actively go out into many western and northern parts of the city as part of work, business and pleasure.

I have never:

Been robbed.
Been mugged.
Been a victim of theft.
Been threatened (one exception: this young guy followed me and my wife as we walked to our car in 5PS and seemed very suspicious. Nothing happened but it's the closest I think I've come to being mugged).

A few other facts:

Norwood's neighborhood assn is one of the most active in the city, implying lots of concerned neighbors.

More houses are occupied over here now than they were two years ago, implying a growing population here.

ALL of the neigbors that I ask about living in Norwood (even the professional-job-having white ones) talk about how nice their neighbors are. How quiet it usually is. How welcomed they've been made to feel.
CAVEAT: things are not perfect by any means. several people who are getting their houses worked on and not living in them have gotten broken into mainly for the copper wireing and construction tools while they were not in the house. Also, mainly from the bottoms, there's gunshot heard every once in a while-a few times a year. It used to be more regular a couple of years ago. A store owner was shot two months ago at 2am when closing up his store which is in the middle of the Bottoms. A tragedy, but his relatives very qucikly reopened the store. Obviously they consider the store worth the danger. And they're transacting business in what is probably the most dangerous part of north birmingham.

I could say more by basically my point to Aquenemi is that statistics have to to be fleshed out with the experience on the ground, which is also my point about whether to move to the SSide. I am an optimist about my neighborhood and the city's prospects. I'm not delusional, however, as I do recognize the problems out there. Just because you seem to be a pessimist doesn't make your preception more real than mine. I choose to pay attention to the good news that I experience everyday in addition to the sky-view statistics, which I think is a realistic way of going about things.

[AQUEMINI331]

Originally Posted by urbups

I am an optimist about my neighborhood and the city's prospects. I'm not delusional, however, as I do recognize the problems out there. Just because you seem to be a pessimist doesn't make your preception more real than mine. I choose to pay attention to the good news that I experience everyday in addition to the sky-view statistics, which I think is a realistic way of going about things.

Good God, you sound like my girlfriend. I'm not a negative person or even a pessimist, just a realist who refuses to see things through rose-colored glasses.


Sure Norwood is not as bad as what many make it out to be. That goes for the city of Birmingham as a whole. But it certainly is not as good as what some others may make it out to be either.


As a general rule, NO place is as good OR as bad as what people make it out to be. I live on the South Side of Chicago, a place that I was warned about from relatives about moving to. I've lived here and have had my car broken into before, but that's about it. I actually see far less crime here in Chicago than I do in Birmingham, despite the fact that Chicago is a city that's actually notorious for crime, going all the way back to the times when Al Capone roamed the streets of the South Side. Nonetheless, just because I have not personally experienced much crime here in Chicago, I know that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Even though I've been to the absolute worst neighborhoods up here (K-town, Wild 100s, officially known as North Lawndale and Pullman respectively), sometimes even at night. Perhaps that's that "modicum of good luck" that one forumer spoke of. But I digress.


In any case, to be fair I have not lived in Birmingham for more than a year and haven't lived on the North Side since the 1980s. I did frequent the area until the day that I left Birmingham altogether though. But still - maybe Birmingham is changing more than I give it credit. I may not be a pessimist but I am a skeptic. I'm the kind of person who has to see proof with my own two eyes, otherwise I"m not convinced. I should make a trip down the boulevard in Norwood when I return home for the holidays.


@ harry chickpea -


I can agree with you on that. I've been to Miami, don't particulaly care for it. Personally I despise Florida in general. I always heard horror stories from my dad who lived in Miami in the early 1980s about how bad the city was. Hearing his stories no one would ever want to go there, but I did for the first time last year, and I have to say that I believe every word. It probably isn't as bad as it was in 25 years ago (no U.S. city's crime rate is as high as it was in the 1980s) but then again it still has a LOT of problems and a lot of shady business going on down there that I just don't trust. Miami is the kind of city where you just don't trust anybody down there, know what I mean? So I definitely understand your perspective. Just trying to let you know that Birmingham's no paradise either, there are plenty of problems down there as well. I keep highlighting these points because even back home (at least when I left) it seemed like people thought that crime in Birmingham was not a serious problem, even people who lived in high crime neighborhoods felt this way! These people were living in the most dangerous neighborhoods of what is clearly one of the most dangerous cities in the entire United States and they thought that crime was not a serious problem. Any potential progress in Birmingham seems to be stymied by either ignorance or apathy, and that needs to change, it really does. I only say these things because deep down I do care about my hometown. It may not seem like it judging from my posts on these boards, but I do. But I hate to see the same **** over and over again. I hate to see the same anti-progressive attitude permeate the air over the city, like our thick smog (4th worst pollution in the U.S. behind Los Angeles, Bakersfield, CA and Pittsburgh according to the American Lung Association). When will the city change? No, forget change - the city needs a revolution. It needs a quick, strong, dramatic change. A gradual change won't work in a place like Birmingham, the city has proven in the past the only way it will change is through revolutionary action.

[Southlander]

Good comments from everybody; I enjoy reading the different viewpoints. Thank you for keeping it civil!

Originally Posted by AQUEMINI331

I hate to see the same anti-progressive attitude permeate the air over the city, like our thick smog (4th worst pollution in the U.S. behind Los Angeles, Bakersfield, CA and Pittsburgh according to the American Lung Association).

Just curious about this statement about Birmingham smog. I first began traveling through Birmingham in 1970, back and forth to Tuscaloosa, and those were truly days of thick, heavy, yellowish-gray, smelly smog. But since most - not all, but most - of the steel mills shut down and scrubbers were installed, B'ham's air is remarkably clear most days that I'm there...and I was there yesterday. Are you sure those statistics aren't old??

[Threestep]

Again - you elaborate nicely. English mayor? Every statement has "heard", "was told" or at least "80s".
Something has to happen in Birmingham but you decided to pack up and move. What is the thrill of "having been to the worst suburbs"?

Being a middle aged, purse toting, truck driving 280 ghetto inhabitant I had a hard time keeping my temper last week when a non-gentleman of color decided to get chummy in the grocery store. And it was on my side of town as you would put it.