Nashville vs. Birmingham (Memphis, Chattanooga, Jackson: insurance, loans, how much)

[RazorRob305]

I'm from Florida, and now live in Nashville. I always see Alabama license plates around the Nashville area, and it got me to thinking how much different can the two areas be...

In your experience, what is the difference between Nashville and Birmingham?

[shinestx]

As different as the meanings of the terms "New South" and "Old South". Yes, that's sometimes a subtle difference, but often it is quite clear.

Of course, Alabama is the "Heart of Dixie", however you interpret that, it's even more Southern than Nashville (you may not think that's possible). Birmingham was the boomtown of the late 1800s with its steel industry while Nashville was still a big country town. But even then, as state capital, Nashville had cleaner industry than Birmingham. By the early 1900s, Birmingham was actually competing against Atlanta for supremacy in the region. Apparently, the beginning of the end was when Delta Airlines chose Atlanta over Birmingham for its HQ/base in 1940. (Moving from Monroe, La). Then the 1950s/1960s came along and Birmingham was dealt many setbacks as the image (likely from poor civic leadership) appeared unwilling to change during the civil rights era. Birmimham (not unlike Memphis with the death of MLK) has been dealing with a poor image since then. Consequently, the population in the core had declined considerably. So the downtown had a lot of classic old buildings, mostly vacant, that were never demolished in the name of urban renewal. Last time I was in Birmingham (last November), I noticed that there is a lot of renovating going on downtown. Think Chattanooga on a larger scale.

One hundred years ago, I imagine a citizen of Atlanta would view Birmingham as a peer to their city. Even the topography of Birmingham is much like that around Atlanta (rolling Piedmont and red clay). Owing to its industrial past, Birmingham has a much older feel than either Nashville or Atlanta, and still has many neighborhoods of smaller "shotguns/dogtrots" built for the people who worked in those steel mills. It was a very densely populated city. For the same reasons, it has also had a populace that had "bigger city" attitudes than Nashville did, and of course, there were the issues of race (Birmingham has long had a majority black population). It also has some great old granite buildings downtown that reflect the wealth created there in the early 20th Century. Just estimating, Birmingham was about three times bigger than Nashville in 1920. It was in the league with New Orleans, Memphis, and the upstart Atlanta. Those cities had something of a headstart over other cities with more recent growth spurts (including Nashville). Through all the turmoil of the middle 20th century and the mass media that enhanced a city's image, those large cities could respond in one way or the other: embrace the changes and try to manage them as Atlanta tried, or resist them as Birmingham tried. If you go to Birmingham, you will see that the city is not the Bull Connor place depicted (even now) by the media. Unfair, but having lived in Dallas in the 1990s, even that city still deals with the image of "hatred" created by the media in the wake of JFK's murder.

How is Birmingham more southern? It probably relates to the relatively few people from big cities in the north and midwest that went to Birmingham, compared to the "flood" that went to Atlanta and Dallas and Houston (and Florida cities for other reasons) from the early post WW2 years up to present day, to work at the companies based there. Most know that Atlanta was built on relocated families moving there for F500 companies that chose the city (mostly because of Delta) for their "new" southern regional offices. This has occurred more recently in other southern cities like Charlotte, Raleigh, Nashville and Austin. I have now seen this happening in Chattanooga, and I imagine the same for Birmingham.

For over eight decades, Atlanta has had an "open arms" attitude to "outsiders", while other "old South" cities were not as prone to welcome folks who didn't grow up in their city's more affluent sections. This would be seen in the birthplaces/hometowns of the civic leaders in those places. Used to be in most Southern cities that the vast majority (totality?) of city councils, other officials, presidents of companies and public institutions were locally born. There is the old saying in many "Old South" cities and towns that the first question you get asked is, "Where did you go to high school?" These are sometimes called "Son in Law" towns, meaning that you'll have to marry into the upper social strata (think inverse of entrepreneurial attitudes where startups don't struggle to get loans and growth capital). Nashville was one of those for a long time... but the music industry and the appearance of large industries in the last 50 years has diluted that attitude a lot. I do business in both cities, and there is a pervasive entrepreneurial attitude in Nashville that is a bit harder to find in Birmingham. While Birmingham still has much of that attitude running through its civic institutions (my brother-in-law grew up in Birmingham), in recent years, the community has made great strides in changing that image. They have built new arenas, expanded UAB (especially the medical complex) and other colleges, an airport, and focused on fixing the social problems that had tarnished the city's image. Brmingham is not a boomtown as Nashville is sometimes considered, but it has been helped a lot by new industry (automobiles, technology, healthcare and insurance). That influx of people from other places is now happening in Birmingham. And I remember as a child (according to my mother and sisters) that Birmingham had far more (and better) places to shop like the Galleria and as my mother calls them, "Boutiques". I suppose that shopping gap between Nash and B'ham has disappeared now with the expansion of Green Hills and Cool Springs. Of course, that's not my interest... and I don't really know how the two compare now. I guess a comparison of the two cities would not be complete without mentioning the growth that Vanderbilt has spurred for Nashville. No doubt, the school has brought more people from more diverse areas to Nashville, and many of those people remained in town after graduating to start business and become civic leaders. So for that reason, Nashville was less insular than many of its peers, even when it was much smaller.

Finally, I have a personal observation going back a number of years. I knew a lot of Birmingham people at Vandy... and believe it is very much a "private school" place. Same could be said of New Orleans and Mobile, and Memphis even. That always gave me the impression that there was a distinct stratum/strata between the middle/lower classes and the "elites". I know that Nashville has some of that... and even Atlanta still does. However, I can't recall ever meeting a kid at Vandy who had attended a public school in Birmingham (or New Orleans). Nashville on the other hand, had a fairly large number of kids who had attended public high schools. I now own a beach house at Orange Beach, Al... so I pass through Birmingham at least 3 times a year. My sense now is that the city has changed a lot since my days at Vandy... just as Nashville has. I'm sure Birmingham is arming itself to compete against those "New South" places I mentioned above.

[YallWantHam]

Birmingham is a terrible city imo.

[mcredux]

If you took away Vanderbilt Med School and reversed the racial demographics of Nashville, the two cities would basically be identical.

[YallWantHam]

Not at all. The actual city of Nashville has about 3x the population of Birmingham. It also has the music industry and healthcare industry to help support it. I think Birmingham may have some banks, but I would guess that Charlotte is a much bigger banking city

[DonCorleone]

Birmingham is a pretty big financial center. Charlotte obviously has the upper hand and Atlanta (SunTrust) is up there too...but Birmingham has Regions and Compass. Probably ranks right there with Atlanta as far as being a financial hub.

shinestx's description is probably pretty accurate. I only have impressions of Bham from a few visits over the last decade or so and they basically are similar to shine's. I did get the feeling that it was going through a Chattanooga style revival.

That said, I think Nashville probably offers more diversity as far as industry goes (healthcare, music/entertainment, finance, automotive to name a few)...certainly more higher education opportunities as well (Vandy, Belmont, Lipscomb, TSU, MTSU and a host of smaller colleges/universities). I think Nashville is more of a melting pot/transplant friendly than Birmingham is...though that's just conjecture on my part.

So my take is Birmingham is a fine city, probably a great place to live now that it seems to be on the upswing. But I think there are more career opportunities and an overall better atmosphere in Nashville. Obviously I've got a pro-Nashville bias since I live here.

[nashvols]

Birmingham is a misplaced Rust Belt city.

The city proper is in a population free fall, while the suburbs are enjoying modest prosperity.

Think of a micro version of Detroit.

[nashvols]

Originally Posted by mcredux

If you took away Vanderbilt Med School and reversed the racial demographics of Nashville, the two cities would basically be identical.

You do realize that Birmingham has UAB, right?

[ariesjow]

Originally Posted by YallWantHam

Not at all. The actual city of Nashville has about 3x the population of Birmingham. It also has the music industry and healthcare industry to help support it. I think Birmingham may have some banks, but I would guess that Charlotte is a much bigger banking city

More importantly, there are over a half million more people in the Nashville metro. While that's not a huge amount, it is quite a considerable number especially when one considers the disparity in growth overall between the metros. It's about the same difference between Nashville and metros like Portland or Cincinnati.

Birmingham seems more like a city trying to hold its own these days. Although its much, much smaller than Birmingham, Huntsville seems to be the town in Alabama that's on the big upswing right now. Nashville has been growing healthily for some time but appears to really be heating up lately. It's starting to separate itself from cities like Birmingham, Louisville & Jacksonville much the same way Austin and Charlotte have been doing for a few decades now. I don't see us pulling in those 30%+ growth rates at the end of the decade like those aforementioned cities. Things are much different now. But we will definitely be on the precipice of being a metro of 2 million by the end of this decade.

[ShekelsInAtemple]

I lived in both places and several others !

we still own family property in shelby County US 280 area around Bham, and lived in Altadena , Vestavia and Indian Springs, but Bham itself sucks and would nver return

Bham is like Memphis

People in Nashville don't even "own" Memphis !...does that give you an idea ??

I would never choose Bham over Nashville, you're talking apples and oranges. Bham, like Memphis is about 25 years behind the crowd...plus very poorly fiscally managed !

I also worked on the exec level with one "those" banks mentioned, and they all suck too