Anything about Madison? (Birmingham, Huntsville, Valley: property taxes, job, hospital)

[zenjenn]

All this talk about Huntsville, I'm curious what everyone thinks of Madison. I didn't get over there during my trip. I heard the roads are awful, but the schools are good? I see with a CRP job, Madison could put a commute at almost nothing. How is it as a place to live compared with Huntsville?

[rnc76]

I'll probably start a Huntsville vs Madison battle by saying this, but...

Madison is one big suburb with very little restaurants, shopping, nightlife... I would live in the older neighborhoods (built in the 80s) on the east side of Madison, off Slaughter and Eastview. They are nice, wooded, and not cookie cutter. That side is REALLY close to CRP and the to be opening Bridge Street commercial development, which would be very nice. But I wouldn't live in the west part of Madison closer to County Line road.

Many parts of the west side of Madison where the newest development is occuring are no closer (especially in traffic) to CRP than alot of South Huntsville. Yes, the traffic is getting worse and worse because they have no tax base other than residential to improve the roads. Yet, they keep allowing developers to put huge subdivisions on roads that were farm roads not too many years ago. Of course, they won't increase property taxes (even thought they are insanely low) to help pay for improvements, because, well, this is Alabama. Politicians that enact tax increases don't stick around very long. This is a problem throughout suburban Madison Co. The schools are good, but not any better than south Huntsville IMO. People move to Madison because the schools are better than Huntsville. OK, the schools are better on average but they aren't better than the parts of Huntsville with similar socio-economics.

Every time I visit friends that live out in western Madison, I am so glad I decided not to move there. The only development is sprawl, traffic stinks and it is only going to get worse and the only thing anyone seems to take pride in is their good schools.

Check it out, all things equal, if I had my choice between Madison and Jones Valley, I wouldn't think twice about it. I'd move to Jones Valley. However, if I found my dream home in east Madison, I would consider it.

[VMH2507]

When I moved to the Huntsville area 9 years ago, I looked at houses in both SE Huntsville and Madison. Although I liked the older established neighborhoods in SE Huntsville, I did not like the outdated floorplans, tiny bedrooms, and lack of closet space that came with a 30 year old house IN MY PRICE RANGE in that area. Those homes are now approaching 40 years old and in recent visits to open houses I did not see any improvement. Instead I bought a 10 year old all brick house on a crawlspace with large bedrooms, abundant closets and storage on a half acre lot in a wooded neighborhood in Madison. The value of my house has increased by approximately 75% since then. I have not regretted my purchase for a minute. Having moved here from Houston, I have not seen anything to complain about as far as roads are concerned -- the traffic in no way compares with what I experienced in Houston. As far as restaurants and shopping are concerned, everyday brings more. Surin recently opened in Madison and Providence has several very nice restaurants. Thomas Barbecue in Madison is thought to be one of the best places for ribs. With the new Bridge Street we will have many top stores which are not found in SE Huntsville. I do agree with rnc that I would not be interested in west Madison, but I did not want a new house just one with newer features than I could find in SE Huntsville. However, that being said, I understand that you are Jewish and I think that there is a much more established Jewish community in SE Huntsville than there is in Madison.

[Reactionary]

Madison is fairly consistently nice. Traffic is a bother during rush hour, but people make that tradeoff in order to live in new developments with good-sized yards (aka sprawl) and to send their kids to good schools and good parks. IIRC, Madison schools score ~70 on NCLB just like S. HSV schools (N. HSV schools score ~30). Almost everything is new.

Traffic would make a Research Park commute tiresome (for here - it's really not that bad compared to other cities). There are only three major E-W roads: University (US72), Madison Pike, I-565 (onramps and access roads get crowded).

The traffic problems are being addressed, commerce is growing, and there will be a new 60 bed hospital soon. You get all the benefits of HSV plus you're a little closer to Birmingham or Nashville.

Madison is also more conservative (more families) than HSV.

Here's a link to the weekly newspaper:

Madison County Record

Note that I enjoy living in HSV. But Madison is a good choice for raising a family.

[zenjenn]

Excellent. Thank you for all the info - useful as always.

Traffic would make a Research Park commute tiresome

Yeah, if we decided on Madison, I think we'd take rnc's advice and stick to east Madison.. part of it is like, right *on top* of CRP as far as I can tell?

East Madison doesn't seem any farther from downtown than South Huntsville. From what I heard the Jewish population is sort of distributed around the entire area, so the only thing to really consider is the vicinity to the synagogue I want to attend, which is in downtown HSV. East Madison didn't seem any further to me..

Well, I'll keep both options open. Looks like my hubby may be getting flown out for another interview in a couple weeks, I'll make him have a look.

[Reactionary]

If you lived out Old Madison Pike ('Slaughter and Eastview'), rush hour traffic would increase your drive time from ~5 minutes to more than 15 minutes... yikes!