Is Birmingham a "major city"? (Greenville, York: homes, university)

[NorthDeKalb]

Originally Posted by Tourian

I though it was the Atlanta people's job to keep Birmingham in check. Usually they're the ones who rush to stamp out any enthusiasm or positive thoughts someone from here might have about our city. I guess they've moved on to bigger and better things and have passed the task over to Charlotte. Awesome.

Birmingham is just an easy target for Charlotte homers. Some of them are starry-eyed enough to believe that Charlotte is somehow huffing at Atlanta's heels at this point, which always provides a much needed ke-ke before lunch!

But anyway, this is where I would place Birmingham:

T1: Houston, Dallas, Miami, Atlanta

T2: Charlotte, New Orleans, Tampa, Orlando, Nashville

Slightly above T3 but below T2 for now: Raleigh, Memphis

T3: Richmond, Jacksonville, Louisville, Birmingham

T4: Knoxville, Baton Rouge, Mobile, Chattanooga, Jackson etc...

[raj kapoor]

Originally Posted by gsupstate

Come on. ^ Not a fair post. I grew up in Birmmgham and love the place with all my heart. It is far from a dump. It is quite a nice city that most people under-rate. BUT, the question is if it is a major city, and facts say no. I just read a listing of current Fortune 500 companies by city....Charlotte has 9 and Birmingham has 1. Facts are facts. I hope to see Birmingham do better and grow into a true major city!!! Birmingham has the infrastructure to support a larger population, it has the natural beauty and the arts to attract more people / companies. I am pulling for Birmingham....but pulling can't change current facts.

Most of us are familiar with your forum posts in many cities and you have an agenda that aggitates many in those various cities. You react to posts with subject lines like this.
Your presentation is almost always smarmy.
Mature a little . Comparing cities in this general way is apple and oranges. We could compare Charlotte to all the hundreds of cities it would like to be like but what is the point. Just a decade is all it take for the fortunes to turn. You think Birmingham isn't changing which means your criteria is not about the quality of life which should be first. Your list means nothing as things change.

raj

[JoeTarheel]

Originally Posted by Tourian

I though it was the Atlanta people's job to keep Birmingham in check. Usually they're the ones who rush to stamp out any enthusiasm or positive thoughts someone from here might have about our city. I guess they've moved on to bigger and better things and have passed the task over to Charlotte. Awesome.

I don't know why anyone from Atlanta would disparage Birmingham...I guess it could happen with some of the crazy boosters on this site, but it certainly would be a silly thing to do. Birmingham is a pretty great city with a lot to offer. Sure it's had some leadership issues that have held it back over the years, but it seems to be on the verge of some major growth and development. I've got my fingers crossed future successes there. There is definitely enough to go around.

[atler8]

Joe Tarheel
I particularly appreciated the fact that your last reply to Raj included an italicized portion of his previous post & that you addressed it so positively.

Raj
I beleive that there is or was a corner in downtown Birmingham that bore the title, "The heaviest place on Earth", & that it was due to the positioning there of 4 decent-sized skyscrapers in close proximity.
Actually for the time when they were built, they were among the tallest buildings in the entire south. And at that time, Birmingham & Atlanta were pretty much neck & neck in size with Birmingham growing faster than Atlanta at that time.
I read once that the rapid growth accounted for it's old moniker oas"The Magic City" because it was growing so fast.
You said that Atlanta should have more old large buildings now because it was founded 30 years earlier than Birmingham. Honestly I don't see how the age of the cities has much to do with how many large buildings it contains. Rather, the overriding factors are whether business development in a given city necessitated the construction of large buildings as well as how many of them were removed eventually. The push to the sky in Atlanta was limited & only one tower of over 250 feet or more was constructed back then.
And back in that time frame in the 1900's when the two cities were nearly identical in size, there was not as much of a push in Atlanta to build larger & taller buildings as compared to that "heaviest" corner over in Birmingham. So, you can say that Atlanta should have more but that's only your opinion. I guess that the vintage city fathers & businessmen of old in Atlanta should have had you travel back & consult with them regarding th size of buildings they should have built then. LOL!
Also, if you look at the stock of old, large buildings in Atlanta that have been lost or that are still standing, a large majority of those that stood on the Peachtree Street corridor are gone. Other areas, such as the previously cited Fairlie-Poplar district fared better at building retention thankfully & are welcome foils of contrast to the newer towers nearby.

[Columbuskidd92]

Bull Conner and George C. Wallace ruin the future of Birmingham back in the past.

[Mouldy Old Schmo]

Does Birmingham still love the governor?

[cpg35223]

Originally Posted by Mouldy Old Schmo

Does Birmingham still love the governor?

Never did. That's why we were the last part of the state to have the interstates completed.

[birminghamster]

Originally Posted by cpg35223

Never did. That's why we were the last part of the state to have the interstates completed.

Which is largely why Birmingham isn't Charlotte or Nashville or Atlanta etc.

[Mutiny77]

Originally Posted by birminghamster

Greenville has an MSA population of 824k and CSA population of 1.4 million, but its urban area has a population of 400k. My case in point.

Truthfully, Greenville's real urban area population is well over half a million. The adjacent suburban Mauldin-Simpsonville urban area (population of 120K) is counted separately although it connects seamlessly with Greenville's--which is the way the Census does things. But to your point, multinodal metro areas consist of more than one primary city, usually with one significantly larger than the other(s), but still not large enough to give the feel of the size of the entire metro area by itself.

Originally Posted by raj kapoor

Read Charlotte's history. It is a late comer and definitely has been driven by its relationship to Atlanta. Gold and banking built it. Fifty years ago most Carolinians would have wagered that Raleigh would be the dominant city in the Carolinas today. And it may someday.

It seems that you're not very familiar with Charlotte's history. Charlotte may be a "late comer" of sorts in terms of growth and development, but it hasn't had much of a historic relationship to Atlanta for its growth to have been sourced in that. You may be getting confused by the fact that historically, similar industries were drivers of growth in both Charlotte and Atlanta, namely textiles and rail transportation. Charlotte's centralized position within the Carolinas and relationship with other Carolina cities did much more to drive its growth than anything having to do with Atlanta.

And fifty years ago, I doubt very seriously that anyone would have wagered that Raleigh would be the dominant city in the Carolinas, as its growth happened even later than Charlotte's. In 1963, Charlotte had already solidified its status as the Carolinas' largest city, having surpassed Charleston to take that title in the early 20th century. The only regional competition Charlotte had at that time was the Triad, which was the largest metro in NC (and at one point, Winston-Salem was the state's largest city). Raleigh and the Triangle didn't begin to truly boom until around the 90's.

Originally Posted by raj kapoor

The area you refer to is just my point. I am referring to large historic buildings of which it has few. The city is thirty years older than Birmingham and should have had more. They would have been built after the begining of the twentieth century.

First of all, Atlanta was burned to the ground during the Civil War early in its history and had to rebuild. So in actuality, Atlanta had a little less of a head start than Birmingham. Secondly, Birmingham experienced an unprecedented boom from 1900-1910, unrivaled by any decade in Atlanta up until that point, when it grew from 38,415 to 132,985--an increase of 245% (94K in raw numbers). Almost overnight, Birmingham became a peer of Atlanta's, which had a population of 89,872 in 1900 and 154,839 in 1910. However, in the 50's, Atlanta began to rapidly pull ahead and leave Birmingham in the dust (which was due to several factors).

With this in mind, it actually makes sense that Atlanta and Birmingham have a similar number of early 20th century buildings as they were around the same size and of similar stature for most of the first half of the 20th century.

Originally Posted by raj kapoor

For instance Greenville is about 800.000 only when you include another little city, Spartanburg. These are just not large cities but what does it matter. Charlotte is the only Carolina city that stands as most American cities with a major central city and suburbs. It does not rely on other cities ten miles down the freeway for it numbers.

Greenville's MSA of 843K doesn't include Spartanburg, which is a separate MSA. It does, however, include Anderson, which is smaller than Spartanburg and was previously its own MSA.

Charlotte is not the only sizable Carolina city as the only primary city in its metro; Columbia (MSA: 785K) and Charleston (MSA: 697K) also have that honor.

Originally Posted by PortCity

Again you don`t have to live in a city to get the fee of it. That makes no sense and to say it is spread out backs my claim. I know for sure that traveling through B-ham area one can sense the feel and lay out of a metro that is a million plus. Visiting the central business district of B-ham you can sense it`s size.Now Greenville on the other hand does not have that 1 million feel to it and anyone who is well traveler should feel the same way. Greenville`s central business district does not feel as urban as B-ham or Mobile for that matter. No one is bashing Greenville so it`s no need to be throwing sand in the sand box my friend.

I tend to agree. As I said above, in multinodal metros, the largest city in the metro won't convey the feeling of how populous the entire metro is. This is because other, smaller cities contribute to the overall metro population. In addition to that, Greenville's downtown doesn't have as large of a footprint as other cities that are truly of comparable size, such as its SC peers of Columbia and Charleston.

[characterRef]

Birmingham a "great city" ?? NO it's not

It could be, but it squandered its future to Atlanta a long time ago...why ?

overt racism

poverty

Steel Industry and Shekelcounting interlopers

poor transportation infrastructure

Awful airport/connections

didn't kiss the azz of Delta Airlines

Atlanta had Coca Cola and Trust Company of Georgia....lol

Poor public education

Xenophobes EVERYWHERE