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Of those areas listed, I would have to pick Birmingham as it has the advantages that go along with being larger and more regionally dominant. Birmingham's leadership in medical research is a huge asset and there is an urban fabric that is gradually getting better utilized.
I'd like Knoxville best as a place to live, but that is a personal preference due to the Upper South rather than Deep South location, mountains and lakes in the area, and having a generally healthy but small urban core with a major university. Incidentally, I'm pretty sure the Knoxville metro has a higher share of retirees and transplants from outside the region than the other metros. Objectively it isn't at the same level as Birmingham in terms of development and regional influence. There are certain economic advantages associated with being the dominant city of a state, and Nashville greatly occupies that role in Tennessee.
I believe Baton Rouge has a bright future. First of all the presence of LSU as a major economic engine provides some insulation against economic downturns even if a future Obama-type president attacks domestic energy production and the oil and gas industry suffers. At least right now the petrochemical industry is also doing well and Baton Rouge has a lot of industrial, blue collar jobs, something that is no longer seen in cities of the Midwestern and Northeastern Rust Belt. Also the Baton Rouge metro area has grown rapidly in the past few years even if some of it is at the expense of New Orleans as many people who left the New Orleans area during Katrina have stayed in Baton Rouge. And no this is not just government funded evacuees from the Ninth Ward, it includes a lot of regular people who moved on their own.
Baton Rouge seems to have a healthier economy than a lot of the nation and quite a few people have also moved here from the Rust Belt for work as places like Pennsylvania and Ohio continues to hemorrhage jobs and their economy continues its downward spiral.
I believe Baton Rouge has a bright future. First of all the presence of LSU as a major economic engine provides some insulation against economic downturns even if a future Obama-type president attacks domestic energy production and the oil and gas industry suffers. At least right now the petrochemical industry is also doing well and Baton Rouge has a lot of industrial, blue collar jobs, something that is no longer seen in cities of the Midwestern and Northeastern Rust Belt. Also the Baton Rouge metro area has grown rapidly in the past few years even if some of it is at the expense of New Orleans as many people who left the New Orleans area during Katrina have stayed in Baton Rouge. And no this is not just government funded evacuees from the Ninth Ward, it includes a lot of regular people who moved on their own.
Baton Rouge seems to have a healthier economy than a lot of the nation and quite a few people have also moved here from the Rust Belt for work as places like Pennsylvania and Ohio continues to hemorrhage jobs and their economy continues its downward spiral.
I'm going to have to agree and disagree.
LSU is a major economic driver that is fairly academically underperforming outside of the engineering department.
Baton Rouge lives and dies on the petrochemical industry and when it slows down, everyone feels it. That's one of the main reasons why we haven't grown. The economy is not very diverse outside of education and big oil. Baton Rouge hasn't grown rapidly, yes we've seen growth from Katrina but that wasn't growth in the sense of people moving for a better opportunity, it was mostly displaced people.
Baton Rouge and Louisiana weathered the recession very well but we still are stagnant on growth, metro and city.
Baton Rouge suffers from high crime, absolutely terrible traffic that affects the oil industry and others, high poverty, failing schools, etc.
Has there been any redevelopment in Birmingham that involves converting pre-war department stores and offices into residential apartments?
There's been a ton of adaptive reuse of older structures in Birmingham within the past couple of years. A few examples can be found here and several others here.
Thanks for the links. Those are some beautiful buildings. Here's a quote from the curbed article that is relevant to this thread.
"One of the great things about Birmingham not being as strong, economically, during the recent past is that they didn't do a lot of wholesale demolition of our downtown character"
It did seem most (though not all) of the developments highlighted are office and commercial. I have a question you might be able to help me with as I recall you are African American. Do you have the sense that southern AAs like condos in historic buildings or is the preference to live in newer construction.
Thanks for the links. Those are some beautiful buildings. Here's a quote from the curbed article that is relevant to this thread.
"One of the great things about Birmingham not being as strong, economically, during the recent past is that they didn't do a lot of wholesale demolition of our downtown character"
It did seem most (though not all) of the developments highlighted are office and commercial. I have a question you might be able to help me with as I recall you are African American. Do you have the sense that southern AAs like condos in historic buildings or is the preference to live in newer construction.
Well Black folks aren't really leading the gentrification efforts in the core of Southern cities where most of those historic buildings can be found. So it's not so much a historic building vs new construction thing, but a downtown vs other city neighborhoods/suburban thing, and those other neighborhoods/suburbs tend to have newer construction.
A city feels safer if law abiding people are around 24/7. But you need to have a solid market of owners/renters who prefer a downtown condo/apartment. If this is primarily a White People Thing - repurposing would go slow in B'ham given the demographics.
At least the office/commercial market is looking up.
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