Why is Huntsville annexing so much land? (Madison, Arab: real estate, crime)

[golden eagles fan]

Originally Posted by AuburnAL

It is too bad it can't annex more land to the east. Hopefully, one day it will annex Madison and Triana at the very least.

What's to the east, a mountain? Maybe Redstone? I've driven through Huntsville only once.

[LCTMadison]

East over Monte Sano is pretty much county area, with some development opportunities along 72. That is why HSV has been annexing so much...development. When the auto plant was being looked at in the Greenbriar area they annexed a lot of that land so it would be in HSV. They have literally annexed Madison into a bubble, there is only so much further it can grow. You can't "annex" an incorporated city so Madison is off limits, HSV has just gone around it.

[MisterEd51]

I should have said go to the Interactive Maps and enable the "Incorporated Areas" layer (half way down). That way you see the city limits of all the cities.

To the west Huntsville is approaching Athens and Decatur and seemed to be stopped by I-65. To the east Huntsville is on the outskirts of Owens Cross Roads and is approaching Gurley. It has surrounded Madison. Madison has very few unincorporated land left. Redstone Arsenal and Huntsville may surround Triana also at some point. I was really surprised that the new development (Redstone Gateway) on Redstone Arsenal south of I-565 along Rideout Road has been incorporated within the city limits of Huntsville.

City of Huntsville Interactive Maps
Huntsville Interactive Maps

[dag7763]

I feel bad for the unincorporated areas around Huntsville that get annexed, simply because of the fact that Huntsville is bizarrely still one of the few cities under a DOJ desegregation order, which means that the Feds are constantly tweaking districts to maintain to some BS racial balance whilst completely slighting the parents who paid big money to live in an expensive neighborhood with good neighborhood schools attended by kids in the same socio-economic bracket. It's insane to me to spend $400k to live in a upscale golf course community with a median income of $100k just to have to choose between shelling out for private school, or sending your kid to school across town with kids on welfare living in public housing. It defies all concepts of freedom of association and it's disgraceful. Huntsville needs to get that archaic deseg order dropped, it's not 1955 anymore and any residential segregation is a voluntary choice. The Supreme Court ruled years ago that de facto school segregation based upon voluntary residential patterns is legal and not against Brown v Board of Ed.


I love Alabama and I had an opportunity to take a job in Huntsville about 8 months ago that I would have 100% taken, if not for the ridiculous Huntsville deseg order that would've forced me to live in Madison, when we wanted to live in the Monte Sano area.

[golden eagles fan]

How could the Feds force you to live in Madison or any place else?

[dag7763]

Originally Posted by golden eagles fan

How could the Feds force you to live in Madison or any place else?

You misunderstand me, the Feds cannot force me to live in Madison..however the federal desegregation order only applies to the city of Huntsville, so in order to not be in a situation where the federal government forces me to send my kids across town to a school in the hood, OR sends kids that live in the hood to a school that I paid damn near half a million dollars to be near, I would be forced to live in Madison.

If I'm going to live in any Madison in the Deep South, it's going to be Madison, MS just north of Jackson..not Madison the suburb of Huntsville.

[ckhthankgod]

Originally Posted by dag7763

You misunderstand me, the Feds cannot force me to live in Madison..however the federal desegregation order only applies to the city of Huntsville, so in order to not be in a situation where the federal government forces me to send my kids across town to a school in the hood, OR sends kids that live in the hood to a school that I paid damn near half a million dollars to be near, I would be forced to live in Madison.

If I'm going to live in any Madison in the Deep South, it's going to be Madison, MS just north of Jackson..not Madison the suburb of Huntsville.

Why, considering that Huntsville is growing at a faster rate and likely has a better economy than Jackson MS?

I also wonder if the desegregation order is in place there due to the NASA presence in the city? Meaning, that there is an industry investment aspect that comes with that order. I also say this as you could argue that desegregation orders from various levels has helped the business climate for many Southern metros.

[dag7763]

Originally Posted by ckhthankgod

Why, considering that Huntsville is growing at a faster rate and likely has a better economy than Jackson MS?

I also wonder if the desegregation order is in place there due to the NASA presence in the city? Meaning, that there is an industry investment aspect that comes with that order. I also say this as you could argue that desegregation orders from various levels has helped the business climate for many Southern metros.

It's not all about the economic climate, and "growth". I for one am not the biggest proponent of insane growth and overbuilding. Yes it gets people rich, but have you been down there? Or to Charlotte or Raleigh? Haphazard growth is eating up beautiful rural land and diluting the polite, southern conservative culture that makes the U.S. South attractive to me in the first place. I don't wanna live in a beat down place like Memphis with no economy, but moving south for me means I want to live in the South with all that entails. If I wanted to move to other booming Southern cities like Charlotte or ATL, I cannot have that experience because likely half my neighbors would be the same people I would encounter here on Staten Island.


As for the desegregation order being a prerequisite for economic growth, are you mad? I guess Brooklyn hasn't grown at all because of its incredible residential segregation (go down to Crown Heights or around Flatbush Ave and you will see what I mean), or DC, or Boston, or Chicago.


Residential segregation will always exist as long as we have different racial groups inhabiting this country, in 2015 that segregation is completely voluntary. If a black person has enough money they can move to any area they want and vice versa. However, the biggest reason I choose a neighborhood as a parent is the schools. If I spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to get into a community, a big part of that is because I like the demographics and make up of that community and I want those people to be the people my son goes to school with. If I wanted to live in a poverty stricken neihjborhood in North Huntsville and for my son to go to school with those kids, I would purchase a home there. Of the same coin, if someone from North Huntsville has enough money to purchase a home in South East Huntsville and send their kids to school with kids whose parents are doctors, lawyers, and engineers instead of welfare cases and foster mamas, that's their choice as well. The DOJ order is a gigantic violation of my right to freedom of association and my right as a homeowner to get what I paid for (a good school in walking distance) and I bet you that I haven't been the only person turned off by this, and other people have either declined offers in Huntsville or moved to Madison city instead of Huntsville because of this. It's a hamper to economic growth.

There is a reason that black professionals are attracted to Atlanta, and that Mexicans are attracted to Los Angeles, that Chinese are attracted Flushing Queens, that Dominicans move to the Bronx, that Cubans move to Miami, that Italian Americans like me move to Staten Island and Jersey, that Polish move to Chicago etc etc etc.
It's not because they are legally mandated to segregate themselves. It's because it's human nature to want to live in similarity and associate with similar people. It's not just racial, it's economic too. Rich people like to be amongst other rich people, middle class amongst middle class and so on. It's my right to seek out a community with a similar demographic, spend money to be there and expect to get what I have paid for.

The people in rich areas with great schools in South Huntsville live there because they deserve to live there because they paid for it, the people in poor areas like North and West Huntsville with bad schools also deserve to live there because that's what they paid for. Taking away what someone paid for and inhibiting ones rights to freely associate is simply, un-American.

[atler8]

Well, the original thread topic kind of got side-tracked & lost, didn't it?
Maybe there's enough conversational interest for a completely separate desegregation thread to be created.

[AuburnAL]

Originally Posted by golden eagles fan

What's to the east, a mountain? Maybe Redstone? I've driven through Huntsville only once.

State law prevents Huntsville from annexing land in the county to the east. Too bad as it is the most convenient area to downtown.