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And there are others, besides Birmingham, that haven't.
From my perspective, folks from Birmingham are exposed to other places (other Southeastern cities ar the least) and are well aware that several other cities have turned the corner before they have, but perceptions often take a while to catch up to reality. They have every right to be proud of and tout their city's accomplishments.
No city is perfect and they all have their negatives, even the ones that have surpassed Birmingham in key indicators over the past several years. Even so, you have to start somewhere and everything isn't going to turn around overnight. From where I sit (which is admittedly not a front row seat), it appears that the city is clearly headed in the right direction, and a bit faster than in years past. I'm rooting for the city and am glad to see the revitalization taking place there.
Yeah, good points and I do agree for the most part. I just hesitate to call things "progress" when you're just reapplying the lipstick. Without new people moving in, there's not much to sustain. When the University of Alabama has almost doubled in enrollment in the past 20 years, yet all their growth is shipping off to other cities is evidence that there's not much there for your college educated crowd, which if where honest, changes a city. Blue collar jobs do not = bragging rights especially on this forum.. But YES you gotta start somewhere and at least Birmingham is cleaning up the house and definitely making better and a much prouder city.
Yeah, good points and I do agree for the most part. I just hesitate to call things "progress" when you're just reapplying the lipstick. Without new people moving in, there's not much to sustain. When the University of Alabama has almost doubled in enrollment in the past 20 years, yet all their growth is shipping off to other cities is evidence that there's not much there for your college educated crowd, which if where honest, changes a city. Blue collar jobs do not = bragging rights especially on this forum.. But YES you gotta start somewhere and at least Birmingham is cleaning up the house and definitely making better and a much prouder city.
University of Alabama is in Tuscaloosa, not Birmingham...smh
You go backward with comments, then forward when someone else not from Birmingham has a complete opposite view of the city from their perspectives and then wants to go forward with some subtle praise. But that's why there are opinions. If you are going to use the "negatives qualities" as a criteria to measure a city, you can't just mention one city bad's and not the others that it's being mentioned with. You have to be fair with all.
But if you straight up just hate a place, which people are entitled to be, commenting on that city with comparison to others, that city won't get the fair justice from that person because of their views toward it.
University of Alabama is in Tuscaloosa, not Birmingham...smh
You go backward with comments, then forward when someone else not from Birmingham has a complete opposite view of the city from their perspectives and then wants to go forward with some subtle praise. But that's why there are opinions. If you are going to use the "negatives qualities" as a criteria to measure a city, you can't just mention one city bad's and not the others that it's being mentioned with. You have to be fair with all.
But if you straight up just hate a place, which people are entitled to be, commenting on that city with comparison to others, that city won't get the fair justice from that person because of their views toward it.
I know where the University of Alabama is, I went there. It's 45 mins from Birmingham. Birmingham is the closest metro/business center to UA yet it retains practically none of its graduates in Business especially.
Your lists are kinda bunk. First of all the ranking is highly weighted by entrepreneurial "friendliness" which is nothing more than a count of local resources this thumbtack.com could count on Google.
Birmingham is VERY entrepreneurial friendly.. The problem though, is that most of these small start ups are VERY small. No one wants to go to work for a start up unless you're desperate or just super interested in that field. It's a very volatile environment so startups do not really move the economic needed... YET. Most of them will fail but all you need is a couple to become Shipt and stay in town.
Don't forget, I'm also comparing it to Greenville and I'm simply calling out the homers that always say "well you just don't know" to anyone who disagrees with them.
I know where the University of Alabama is, I went there. It's 45 mins from Birmingham. Birmingham is the closest metro/business center to UA yet it retains practically none of its graduates in Business especially.
Your lists are kinda bunk. First of all the ranking is highly weighted by entrepreneurial "friendliness" which is nothing more than a count of local resources this thumbtack.com could count on Google.
Birmingham is VERY entrepreneurial friendly.. The problem though, is that most of these small start ups are VERY small. No one wants to go to work for a start up unless you're desperate or just super interested in that field. It's a very volatile environment so startups do not really move the economic needed... YET. Most of them will fail but all you need is a couple to become Shipt and stay in town.
Don't forget, I'm also comparing it to Greenville and I'm simply calling out the homers that always say "well you just don't know" to anyone who disagrees with them.
Birmingham is ahead by a solid bit, as would be expected. It is about 2.5-3x the size of Winston-Salem. Winston-Salem is pretty and Old Salem is pretty neat, as is Reynolda House and some other things there, but Winston-Salem has its problems too.
Birmingham is ahead by a solid bit, as would be expected. It is about 2.5-3x the size of Winston-Salem. Winston-Salem is pretty and Old Salem is pretty neat, as is Reynolda House and some other things there, but Winston-Salem has its problems too.
That's not true. Winston Salem is a population of over 2M within a 50 mile radius while Birmingham is about 1.2M. Within those areas. Last 10 year growth for the two areas shows 3.8% growth in Birmingham area vs 7% growth in the Winston Salem area.
Expanding on that idea.
US Average 10 year growth rate: 7.4%
Winston Salem 10 year growth rate: 7%
Birmingham 10 year growth rate: 3%
How is that properly interpreted? The water around you is rising faster than you can swim up toward the surface. So it doesn't really matter that you're growing when everyone else is growing faster.
In Birmingham's defense, they have stopped much of the bleeding and are definitely a cooler and better city than they were 10 years ago. This will have an effect unless the next recession kicks them in the crotch harder than other metros - which I believe might happen unfortunately.
Birmingham just got back to pre-recession levels and I'm afraid that another recession will be more devastating to the economy, population, and future.
That's not true. Winston Salem is a population of over 2M within a 50 mile radius while Birmingham is about 1.2M. Within those areas. Last 10 year growth for the two areas shows 3.8% growth in Birmingham area vs 7% growth in the Winston Salem area.
This is highly misleading. Winston-Salem has a MSA of 670K with another MSA that's 100K more populous (Greensboro-High Point) next door. A 50K radius would include parts of neighboring MSAs like Charlotte, the Triangle, Hickory, Lexington, etc. but that's not Winston-Salem. All the radius argument shows is that Winston-Salem is in a more populated region than Birmingham but is itself only half the size of Birmingham. It still more than holds its own across the board but you're being extremely disingenuous by making it seem as though Winston-Salem is a city or the center of 2M people.
Furthermore where are you getting these growth figures from? Winston-Salem's MSA grew by 4.82% from 2010-2018 and even if you're using the much larger Triad CSA (which includes Greensboro-High Point), its growth rate for the same period is 5.56%. Birmingham is indeed growing slower on both the MSA (a bit over 2%) and CSA (under 2%) levels but the figures themselves appear to be inaccurate.
I don’t understand this half the size of Birmingham stuff. The city of Winston-Salem is about 40,000 people bigger on less land than Birmingham. If you start looking at larger areas, there are more people living close to Winston than Birmingham. The 1100-square mile county around Birmingham houses 650,000 people. An 1100-square mile area around Winston could fit nearly a million people. Only if you cut off towns 5 miles from Winston and add counties 50 miles away from Birmingham do you get the MSA numbers I have to assume being clutched at here.
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