Relocating to Birmingham (Huntsville, Hoover, Bessemer: low crime, new house, public school)

[rfholcom]

I currently live in Alpharetta which is a very fast paced suburb of Atlanta and have lived here all my life. I am being encouraged to accept a relocation package to Birmingham that is going to be hard to turn down. I have been reading some of the threads and am a little concerned about the area to move to. Here is the group that is moving. My husband and myself (both 50ish and ready to look for a house that we could retire in), my daughter, son in law and 4 boys ages 9-infant). All of us are ready for less traffic and a slower pace of life, yet we want to be within 20 minutes of Target, Home Depot, etc. Sports (especially youth sports) are a big part of our life. I also need to be close to good medical facilities. I am looking in the Trussville area. Thoughts? I keep hearing that Huntsville is great but that would be a 90 minute commute each way which is a little much. What about Huntsville is so great?
Thanks

[pris1959]

Have no qualms about Birmingham. It has a lot of the same characteristics as Alpharetta without as much traffic. Trussville is a great area which is growing by leaps and bounds. Yes there is Target, Home Depot, Lowes, Parisian, Belk and if you need Saks, it's only approx. 10-15 minutes away. There are several areas of Bham where you'll find good youth sports- try Trussville, Vestavia, Homewood or Shelby County area (although Shelby County has Hwy 280 running through it and it's like Atlanta all over again!). I presently live 30 miles outside of Birmingham and have worked in many places within the city. My average commute was about 45 minutes. I think you would love Bham and would find honest, caring friends here. And if you get homesick, Georgia is close by!

[kairos44]

Hey, I have lived in Atlanta and Orlando or near them and in the Birmingham areas. Right now I live in Trussville and it is great. The Trussville and surrounding areas are growing by leaps and bounds. Great convenince and easy interstate conections. Shopping is great and the city's are quant old fashioned little towns with everything around them. Right now you can find houses in Clay, Pinson, Springville, and Chalkville which are on the borders of Trussville. The homes are a better value in the surrounding citys. You may want to go to removed go to Birmingham and then look at the surrounding properties in the east area. This would also be on the Atlanta side close to I-20. Moderator cut: realtor advertising

[ronideal]

Trussville is very nice, but it is also getting crowded and expensive. There are several different options you might consider. Leeds, for example, has a nice, small town feeling, yet still minutes from UAB Hospital, Target, Lowes, etc. Houses are still affordable in several areas within easy driving distance from downtown Birmingham. Moderator cut: realtor advertising

Originally Posted by rfholcom

I currently live in Alpharetta which is a very fast paced suburb of Atlanta and have lived here all my life. I am being encouraged to accept a relocation package to Birmingham that is going to be hard to turn down. I have been reading some of the threads and am a little concerned about the area to move to. Here is the group that is moving. My husband and myself (both 50ish and ready to look for a house that we could retire in), my daughter, son in law and 4 boys ages 9-infant). All of us are ready for less traffic and a slower pace of life, yet we want to be within 20 minutes of Target, Home Depot, etc. Sports (especially youth sports) are a big part of our life. I also need to be close to good medical facilities. I am looking in the Trussville area. Thoughts? I keep hearing that Huntsville is great but that would be a 90 minute commute each way which is a little much. What about Huntsville is so great?
Thanks

[bamagal]

Hi, rfholcom,

We live in Clay, which is a small city near Trussville. We like it here - and we came from a big city almost 10 years ago. You will be amazed at the difference in the traffic - it's not nearly as busy or hectic as in the Atlanta area.

Trussville is growing, and because of the new mall - the Pinnacle - that has just opened on Hwy 11 near the junction of I-59 and I-459 - the traffic is getting ready to get worse. Still not as bad as Atlanta, but it will be busy, especially as Christmas shopping gets seriously underway. There are a lot of nice stores in Trussville - and they are less than 10 miles from us in Clay, and we don't have all of that traffic. Not yet, anyway.

Clay and the surrounding area is growing as well. There are several new subdivisions being built in Clay, and you can find homes here in the 150K - 350K+ range.

Clay, Trussville, and Springville, which is just north of us, have all got active sports programs for the children. Several of my children have participated in sports through the local ballpark. I know they have baseball, softball, basketball, football, and soccer programs. Clay is building a new ballfield, and Trussville is planning a new sports complex.

Springville is also a nice community - the traffic can be very hectic during their Homestead Hollow weekends, but that's only 3 times a year. It is also growing, and they just opened their first Walmart. I'm pretty sure they still only have 1 traffic light in the town - and that's a new one they put in because of the Walmart.

You can easily get from any of these communities to other places via I-59 (although I like to take back roads for the most part - very scenic . )

Regarding medical facilities, Medical Center East is located very close to Trussville and easily reached by all communities. There are lots of doctors' offices located near there. If you need specialized attention, you can't beat the medical facilities you will find downtown, and that's not that far away either - probably a 40 minute drive for us if the traffic is heavy. UAB Hospital, the Eye Foundation, Kirklin Clinic - lots of stuff.

I hope this helps!

[RonHei]

Low prices, LESS traffic, close to everything. Having something "growing by leaps and bounds" to me doesn't exactly have a pleasing connotation. Let them grow "elsewhere", for me, a little peace and quiet.

[MrMeisterMan]

hmmmm....my three cents

I've lived all over....really....Atlanta 2 times in my career..lol...our family owns property all over the south and 2 places our west.....and still own property around Birmingham.

My thought based on experience and dealing with people....First , Birmingham is no comparison to Atlanta- educationally and socio-culturally. Birmingham is far behind and parochial, with a bunch of old-school, good ole boy rednecks, with a few 'imports' thank god because of firms such as UAB, the medical school, Samford, Birmingham-Southern College, Rust, Sonat, and of course the banking community (former SouthTrust....and Regions), and stores such as the Proffit Group and Brunos, etc....

Besides that, Birmingham has quite a bad history...on race relations and other social interaction.....Birmingham is like Memphis in that no body lives in the city at all....most all the really nice areas are 'over the mountain', meaning Vestavia Hills, Mountain Brook, Hoover (it's changing though), Pelham, even Alabaster, Helena, Indian Springs, and even further south down US 280 and US 31 !!

Frankly, you couldn't give me a house in Trussville !....you've got to be kidding me....sorry....talk about some hicks...but if that's your thing fine....for me that's like living in old Bessemer or Midfield......in short, there's very little comapring metro ATL to Birmingham...not in entertainment, food, sports, schools etc.....living in Birmingham MSA is like taking a step back in time and awareness, just like Memphis...but the residents are mostly oblivious to it....the folks that live mostly 459-south don't have much to do with the city AT ALL...they are to some degree very insulated......having said that, the topography in the area is beautiful and so are the home settings (we own a place on the Cahaba River basin).....

Huntsville is BY far a better place to live....GREAT 'big little city', smart citizenry, proactive government, very little 'racial ying-yang' (most folks are too busy and smart for that kind of crap), great location, lots of beautiful water around, close to another great southern city, Nashville ! Given a choice, MOVE to Huntsville......but that's a crazy commute to Birmingham. In some ways Birmingham is stuck in a time warp....but the locals LOVE it...the tranferred professionals only put up with it, live in sort of a cocoon, spend time with like minded professionals, and hop on a plane to get out....or strangely, they DRIVE a LOT to Atlanta !.....HA !...get it??

[fishmonger]

Hey,

Moderator cut: off topic While Birmingham certianly isn't as big or dynamic a city as Atlanta, we're not some backwater as the said chode seems to believe. Several of the public school systems in the area are very good, and there are also good places to live in the city limits (although the Birmingham public school system is not very good and has suffered from more affluent families fleeing the city to the suburbs, ala Detroit or Cleveland... so you might not want to live "in the city" if you have school-aged kids.) Most of the suburbanites are pretty conservative and religious, but not rednecks. On the other hand, the Southside area of Birmingham is quite liberal and is probably the most economically and socially diverse community in Alabama. I would definitely reccomend moving there to someone who doesn't have kids and wants to be in the "middle of it all." Nightlife doesn't compare to Atlanta, but it's decent for a mid-sized city and there's tons of bars, clubs, and music venues around the 5-points area of Southside. We're not a cultural backwater, either (Birmingham has I think the largest municipal art museum in the Southeast, for starters.) People are friendly, and Birmingham, for better and for worse, is a very distinctly "southern" city, like Memphis (as MeisterChode points out).

For the most part, Birmingham is just like any other extensively-suburbanized mid-sized city, except that lots of people here like barbeque and football and tend to have Southern accents. It's not "taking a step back in time" to come here; people have IPods and computers and all that (even the "redneck locals").

AND, as for Huntsville, it is boring. Nice city, but there's really nothing at all there to do except go to the Space Center. It's a very prosperous city that was a small town until around the advent of the automobile area, and as a result, it's basically one giant suburb of itself. (Talk about homogenous white-bread conservative land, by the way...) BORING.

[fishmonger]

since I just noticed you said you have kids and want a slower pace of life, most of what I posted is pretty irrelevant. Sorry about that. But don't worry too much about running into backwards rednecks, even in Trussville. Now if you go about 10-20 miles outside of the city limits in any direction besides south, you will most likely run into some backwards rednecks. But most of them are nice people.

[Cat_Hale]

I personally live in Maylene (although we're right on the border of Alabaster) A quickly growing area with very low crime rates. A lot of schools and a lot of subdivisions being built. You can get a decent town home in the 180s and up. There are LOADS that are still being built.

Heck, yesterday I met a women from Atlanta who just moved into the new houses being built across the street.

They're building a new huge strip mall (the colonial promenade) here, it's already semi-opened but they're adding lots more. You have so much shopping options around here it's just crazy. If you like subdivisions, this is the place. I personally like living a bit more rural..

But it's still quiet, I mean.. the traffic isn't too bad. Kids can still play outside. We have some parks in the area and it's not hard to get away from it. Within minutes you can be in the countryside. Not a bad place to be with a family.