The Wealthy Neighborhoods of Birmingham, Alabama
An Overview of the Metro Area
Birmingham has indeed come a long way in its relatively brief history. Born in the aftermath of the Civil War (1871), the city quickly burgeoned into the iron and steel industry’s “Pittsburgh of the South” by the early 20th Century. The city’s explosive growth in its first forty years earned it the nickname of the “Magic City”. Although it soon became the state’s largest city, Birmingham has always been considered a brash industrial upstart by the more genteel antebellum cities of Mobile and Montgomery.
Birmingham’s reliance on the iron and steel industry would be a curse and a blessing as dependence on one industry would lead to a boom and bust cycle throughout most of the 20th Century. During the last 20 years the steel industry has waned to secondary importance as Birmingham has pegged its future to banking and medicine.
The banking industry of Birmingham has recently succumbed to the on-going national trend in bank consolidation and three of it’s four largest banks have changed form. Southtrust was swallowed by Wachovia which was in turn forced into Wells Fargo. Regions Bank bought their slightly smaller rival AmSouth. The smallest of the four largest banks, Compass, retains it’s name but is now owned by a Spanish bank. Voila! There is now only one large bank headquartered in Birmingham: Regions Bank. As of June 30, 2009, Regions was the 10th largest bank in the United States with deposits of $93.7 million.
The University of Alabama-Birmingham‘s large medical center is nationally recognized as a leader in many specialties and has been critical to the stabilization of the central city. The university itself was essentially grafted onto the medical center and has blossomed into a respectable urban university in spite of weak state support. The city also has two highly regarded large Baptist hospitals and St. Vincent’s, a very large formerly Catholic hospital.
The city is located in Jones Valley in the foothills of the Appalachians, and the bulk of the city limits lies in the flat lands of the valley. Upscale neighborhoods developed along the flanks of Red Mountain in the early part of the twentieth century as the city’s aristocracy escaped the industrial pollution and captured today’s panoramic views. Don’t bother looking for expensive housing north, east or west of the city; the upscale development of the metro region is found along U.S. Highway 280 to the Southeast of the city. The upscale neighborhoods in this area are very beautiful due to the rugged, heavily wooded topography. Homes are built along the sides, in the valleys and on the crests of Red, Shades, and Oak Mountains. Of course, Birmingham has no real “mountains,” but none-the-less, these three rather steep, heavily wooded Appalachian ridges make for very attractive suburbs and neighborhoods. Suburban sprawl has brought development to the flanks of a fourth Appalachian ridge, Double Oak Mountain.
Higley 1000 Neighborhoods in the Greater Birmingham Metro Area
View Larger Map
Birmingham will forever be tainted by its fierce and violent resistance to racial integration. Although the city’s race relations have progressed along the lines of the rest of the nation, a social and cultural gulf between whites and blacks persists. White flight from the central city (now 73.5% black) continued at a torrid pace during the 1990s with the white population dropping from 91,000 to 58,000. This trend continues into the new Century as the American Community Survey estimates the White population at 48,000 in 2006. The Birmingham city schools are over 99% black, heralding ever more residential segregation. Social and religious life in Birmingham is almost completely segregated. Mountain Brook, easily Birmingham’s most prestigious suburb, is 98.1% Non-Hispanic White. Even Forest Park, a city neighborhood that is much more liberal than the suburbs in outlook and voting, is 96.2% Non-Hispanic white. Unfortunately, there is a latent and sometimes outright hostility between Black Birmingham and the White suburbs.
The Arrival and Demise of Hurricane Larry (Langford)
In November of 2007 Birmingham began a new era with the election of Larry Langford as Mayor. Langford is a controversial character in local politics. Vainglorious and egotistical, he started his political career as the mayor of Fairfield, a struggling, small poor Black suburb adjacent to Birmingham that is famous as the location of the formerly huge US Steel works. Langford spent profusely in Fairfield leaving the small poor city struggling financially to pay off a new city hall and civic center. A man of unbounded ambition, he soon jumped to the Jefferson County Commission where he made waves and headlines by creating what may have been one of the most unusual fiascos in the annals of county governance by railroading through an amusement park with public money. He named his brainstorm Visionland and it was a disaster from the get-go. After $90 million of taxpayers money was poured into this albatross that was in a dreadful location, this money hemorrhaging loser was sold to a private developer for $5 million and rechristened Alabama Adventure. Commissioner Langford also raised the sales tax in Jefferson County to an astronomical 10% to finance a vast rebuilding of the Jefferson County school buildings. As head of the county commission he reigned over the rebuilding of the county’s sewer system that has saddled the county with $3.2 billion dollars in debt after he pursued a policy of debt swaps and was hoodwinked by the city slicker bankers in New York City. Look for the largest municipal bankruptcy in the history of the United States when Jefferson County goes under. It is not a matter of whether it will happen…. it is just when. As of August 2009, the Jefferson County Commission has managed to stave off bankruptcy for now, but it is only a matter of time.
Langford was indicted in 2009 for taking $238,000 in bribes for steering the Jefferson County bond business to a brokerage firm run by the highly connected Blount family in Montgomery. The trial, that began on August 31st, 2009 and the jury quickly found Mayor Langford guilty. He has begun serving a 15 year term in a federal penitentiary.
Langford brief tenure was a whirlwind of activity. He immediately raised taxes and “found” money to start an incredible array of initiatives that are too numerous to catalog here. One bad idea that preceded Langford was the quest for a domed stadium downtown… a sort Visionland Stadium that will push the envelope with a half a billion dollars of additional debt. No professional teams would consider relocating to Birmingham as the market is too small. If the stadium is ever built, Birmingham will have a gold plated stadium that will be used for gun shows and tractor pulls. Considering the impending bankruptcy of the County, the on-going financial problems of Birmingham and the intransigence of the White suburban counties and cities to help the central city, means that it is very unlikely that this boondoggle will ever be built.
Fortunately for Birmingham, Langford has been succeeded by William Bell, an honest career politician who has been tasked with cleaning up the mess left by his predecessor. Mr. Bell is just what Birmingham needs: professional, realistic, and willing to make some tough funding proposals to deal with a difficult economy and the accounting shenanigans of the brief Langford mayoralty. Bell has been forthright in wrestling with a $77 million deficit. He has proposed some tough cutbacks and it will be up to the city council to come up with a better plan for fixing the problem.
One notable and timely Langford intervention has been in the local “mass transit system”. I use quotation marks in that what passes for mass transit in Birmingham is a joke. The local bus system is an embarrassment and Langford proposed non-existent money money for 100 new buses and 8 antique trolley cars that Prague, Czech Republic is trying to unload on the rubes of Alabama. Fortunately, the city council decided the street cars might have to wait and that harebrained scheme seems to have been put to rest. The 100 buses never materialized (surprise) as the money that was given to the mass transit district had to be used to cover a whopping budget deficit and makeup for lost federal transit subsidies.
Whether it is a bus system that actually works, or some other combination mass transit system, a source of dedicated revenue is necessary beyond sales tax increases. Sales taxes, in all of there regressive glory, are the only tax venue open to raising in Alabama without going through the completely corrupted Alabama state legislature. At 10% through much of the metro area, they have been raised to the breaking point.
Taxes: The Third Rail of Alabama Politics
Taxes are the third rail of Alabama politics. The state has the lowest per capita taxes in the United States and yet to hear the politicians talk, you’d think they we’re living in Massachusetts or Minnesota. No matter how horrible the schools are, no matter how inhumane the prisons, no matter how many federal court orders castigate the wretched public services of Alabama, Republicans and “Democrats” will not raise taxes in any meaningful way. One must remember that the difference between Republicans and Democrats in Alabama is negligible and laughable: they are both hard core right-wing conservatives. There is nary a Liberal or Progressive thought to be heard in any meaningful forum from the state legislature in Montgomery to the salons of Mountain Brook…
The voters have made themselves loud and clear on the issue of taxes and any politician that has the courage and audacity to speak the truth on taxes is in peril. Alabama’s current Governor, Bob Riley (R) lived to prove that it is possible to have a political life after proposing a tax increase, but he has a rare amount of courage in my humble estimation.)
Hence, it is difficult to make progress in any meaningful way. Progress on one front means another is neglected. And yet there is progress in an unplanned plodding kind of way.
Whether the domed stadium ever gets built, or the Olympics will choose Birmingham over Chicago, this is a metro area that can’t even get the lights burning on the freeway system! Mayors have made promises about fixing our darkened byways ever since I have lived here and nothing ever happens. Whole sections of the freeway have no lights as all levels of government show that they are totally incompetent in solving this most complex of urban problems facing the 21st Century American city: changing light bulbs.
The state is mismanaged and under taxed and its antiquated 1910 Constitution gives local authorities little discretion in solving their financial problems. This inability to solve local problems is no more evident than in the U.S. Highway 280 corridor. The highway is the proverbial “golden goose” of Birmingham’s economic development, and it is literally being strangled to death by traffic. The 280 corridor has witnessed a boom in commercial, retail, and residential construction that has overwhelmed the six-lane commercial strip with grinding traffic. This strip of highway has become an unplanned overbuilt jumble and is as ugly as it is dysfunctional…. and still the developers build more…. while the politicians wring their hands and commission another study. Urban planners commit suicide after looking at 280. .
The highway runs through seven competing jurisdictions, and their cutthroat competition for sales tax revenue and unwillingness to control growth have made this an area to avoid for sane motorists. There’s nothing like crawling along behind giant SUVs (drill, baby drill) contemplating the exhilaration and freedom of the open road. The willing residents who live along 280 have no alternative routes to get to the CBD, and if the tolled, double-decked section is ever built, this future “improvement” will promise staggering traffic disruption as it is built. Oh well, as one local Realtor told me in downplaying the dreadful traffic on 280, “It’s no worse than Atlanta”.
I’ll let that speak for itself!
Not that any real improvement for 280 is actually in the planning stage…. The latest proposal is to double deck the highway from the end of the current commercial development to I-459. Opposition from the wealthy suburb of Mountain Brook extending the double decker toll road through their corporate limits would be ugly and especially problematic for 30 or 40 large/mansion homeowners as well as other more modest homeowners who were allowed to build too closely to such a major arterial (see lack of planning).
The city of Birmingham survived the loss of most of its white middle class by the shrewd stewardship and long-running tenure of the city’s first black mayor, Richard Arrington. Arrington made peace with the white business establishment and embarked on an aggressive annexation campaign that long-lassoed some of the most desirable commercial properties along the booming Highway 280 corridor. These include the wildly successful Summit, a lifestyle shopping center (essentially an upscale, heavily landscaped strip mall), a Target SuperCenter, and two struggling yet potentially successful older shopping centers, The recently remodeled Colonnade and Brook Highland, a somewhat forlorn shopping center in a perfect location.
These smart annexations were coupled with an aggressive defense of the central business district. There are currently more than 80,000 people working in the extended downtown… more than ever before in the 130-year history of the city. Unfortunately, this healthy employment base has not translated into a vibrant downtown: there is no significant retailing downtown, the department stores are long gone, and the streetscape is dominated by commercial property. The downtown is devoid of pedestrian traffic after dark.
Operation New Birmingham, a joint local operation has been very successful in rescuing literally hundreds of vacant downtown buildings and finding new uses for them. Birmingham has managed to avoid the curse of Charlotte (whole scale demolition the old CBD). As law firms and architectural design firms have moved into the small and medium sized buildings, work is now in progress on some of the largest abandoned buildings. A wonderful old 1920s skyscraper, the City Federal Savings & Loan is going condo. Similarly, there if hope that the long abandoned Thomas Jefferson Hotel will burst forth in all of its terra cotta beauty reincarnated as the Leer Tower, another condominium development. Leer Tower update: canceled due to recession.
There are few middle class residents in the city center, however, several hundred residential lofts have been constructed in the last few years and city officials are hopeful that these urban pioneers will be the vanguard of revitalization. The recent demolition of the huge, crime-infested Metropolitan Gardens public housing project and its replacement with a mixed-income, federally subsidized Hope VI housing development (Park Place) may augur well for Birmingham’s central business district. Nothing helps a downtown more than removing 900 crime and drug infested public housing units and replacing it with 580 units that are composed of 1/3 carefully vetted poor people and 2/3 market rate (that means lower middle class) apartments!
The Wealthy Neighborhoods of Birmingham in the Higley 1000
There are nine Higley 1000 neighborhoods in Birmingham: Two in the city, three in Birmingham’s premier upscale suburb of Mountain Brook, and four standard issue gated suburban fortresses.
Forest Park and Redmont Park: Birmingham’s Two Elegant City Neighborhoods
View Larger Map of Forest Park
View Larger Map of Redmont Park
Forest Park and Redmont Park are urban neighborhoods on the city’s commonly called the “Southside”. They were both developed in the early 20th Century (1914 and 1925 respectively) and have flourished in the last twenty years. Forest Park suffered through the 1960s and 1970s only to return to its former glory through gentrification in the 1980s and 1990s. Redmont Park has some of Birmingham’s grandest mansions peering down on the city from Red Mountain, a steep 350 foot tall ridge that overlooks the city below. Both Redmont Park and Forest Park are very small with a few hundred homes each. They are also noteworthy in that in spite of the fact that the central city is 75% Black, they are even Whiter than the suburbs! Along with the contiguous gentrified neighborhood of Highland Park, these three neighborhoods are the only upscale places left in the central city.
Mountain Brook: The Tiny Kingdom
Mountain Brook is a large suburb with about 22,000 pure White residents. Local wags refer to it as “The Tiny Kingdom” due to its insular culture and social dominance.
I have carved out three “neighborhoods” out of the wealthiest sections of the city. Two of these neighborhoods are centered and named after the two towering institutions of social prominence in Birmingham, the Mountain Brook Club and The Country Club of Birmingham. The third neighborhood in Mountain Brook I have dubbed Mountain Brook Estates-Canterbury. Mountain Brook Estates was really the start of this gilded suburb in the unfortuitous year of 1929. For statistical purposes I have joined it with the adjacent neighborhood of Canterbury.
Mountain Brook’s Higley 1000 Neighborhoods
Mountain Brook Estates-Canterbury
View Larger Map of Mountain Brook Estates - Canterbury
The Country Club of Birmingham
View Larger Map of The Country Club of Birmingham
The Mountain Brook Club-Shook Hill
View Larger Map
Mountain Brook, without question, is the place where Birmingham’s upper class lives along with a good portion of the metro area’s upper-middle class. Few wealthy suburbs in the United States command such a disproportionate majority of a metro areas wealthy and influential families. Mountain Brook has more than 80% of Birmingham’s Social Register families and anyone with a shred of social aspiration must live within its golden boundaries. It is a world apart from the crime infested streets of Birmingham and its genteel forested streets and clubs are truly a kingdom unto themselves.The Mountain Brook public school system is rated the highest in the state, and the suburb unquestionably has the largest number of Birmingham’s movers and shakers. It is home to the aforementioned blue-blooded Mountain Brook Club and the The Country Club of Birmingham as well as the social matrix of clubs and social alliances associated with the wealthy. The social system is difficult to break into in Mountain Brook unless one has a sterling pedigree. If you’re an internet entrepreneur from Boston… forget it… move to Greystone or Liberty Park. Nouveau riche households abound, but don’t hold your breath for an invitation to join the Mountain Brook Club!
As mentioned previously, Mountain Brook is incredibly white. Not one of the 62 African-Americans that lived in Mountain Brook in the 2000 Census was a householder. My guess is that they would mostly be live-in servants. There are plenty of well-to-do African-American families that could afford to live in Mountain Brook, however, they choose not to. This is a mystery I have not been able to figure out at this time. Anyone with some ideas, please leave a note below.
Greystone and Liberty Park
Greystone and Liberty Park are similar in that they are relatively new, gated master-planned communities centered on golf courses. They are both unusually large in scope and have developed neighborhoods with distinctly different price points. Of the two, Greystone has a wider range of single family houses ($200,000 to $3,000,000). Liberty Park is uniformly more expensive although it has a high end rental complex that is carefully segregated from the expensive single family homes. Each of these developments will have close to 3,000 housing units when complete, and a majority of those homes will be worth more than $500,000.
Greystone
View Larger Map of Greystone
Greystone is part of the suburb of Hoover, a large (70,000) and aggressively pro-growth suburb with the state’s third best school system. Located at the southern end of the 280 corridor, Greystone has been extremely successful in spite of worsening transportation problems associated with 280. I drew the boundaries for Greystone to include only the three high income gated sub-neighborhoods for the Higley 1000: two country club themed neighborhoods and a third (Greystone Ridge) with multi-million dollar view estates. There are hundreds of many more downscale houses available in Greystone…. houses as low as $200,000! Would that buy a pool house in Greenwich?
Liberty Park
View Larger Map of Liberty Park
The second gated community in the Higley 1000 is called Liberty Park. If you can get past the hokey replica of the Statue of Liberty, this master planned community is located on a lovely patch of rolling wooded land that is ideal for beautiful homes. Liberty Park is part of Vestavia Hills, Birmingham’s second wealthiest suburb (after Mountain Brook) and its second highest rated school system. Vestavia Hills is a large (30,000) overwhelmingly white upper-middle class suburb with one exception, the recently annexed lower-middle class community of Cahaba Heights. The architecture of Cahaba Heights is unremitting expanses of dreadful post-war ranches. Cahaba Heights has a perfectly central location in the metro area and the physical environment is beautiful…. can you say TEARDOWN!?
The addition of Cahaba Heights to the corporate limits of Vestavia gave the city a geographic link to Liberty Park formerly a non-contiguous isolated piece of development. But that’s another story…..
Highland Lakes
View Larger Map of Highland Lakes
Highland Lakes, is a very large gated community located out the 280 corridor in the rolling Appalachian foothills south of the city. Highland Lakes is a planned development where every house essentially looks the same. The “lakes” are dammed (damned?)narrow valleys in the Appalachian foothills. As a native of Wisconsin, I can say with full-throated condescension, these puddles are only “lakes” in a developer’s dream! Highland Lakes is solely residential and will ultimately be home to thousands of people that live in a monument to Stepfordian socio-economic and Republican homogeneity.
Shoal Creek-Stonegate Farms
View Larger Map of Shoal Creek and Stonegate
The final Higley 1000 neighborhood is Shoal Creek, another gated golf community and the adjacent newly constructed gated community of Stonegate. After more than twenty years of development, only about 90 of the 230 large wooded lots in Shoal Creek have had houses constructed on them. The development includes suburban Shelby County’s answer to Versailles, an over-the-top 45,000 square foot (empty) chateau built by a local entrepreneur. I think it’s visible from space. Years ago, Shoal Creek’s golf course gained some unwanted national attention when the PGA threatened to cancel a golf tournament at the club unless it was integrated. A token Black guy was recruited, given a membership, and the PGA was happy. The Club was technically integrated and the tournament proceeded. The token Black guy reported in a recent newspaper article that he was treated well at the club, but, unfortunately he died recently. Never fear though for Shoal Creek’s integration as they have found another Black guy to replace him that doesn’t caddy or mow the fairways.
The Village of Mount Laurel
Although not a Higley 1000 neighborhood, there is one newly developing community that merits mentioning. If you’re a fan of New Urbanist design principles, Mt. Laurel is a planned community in the middle stages of development on the far urban fringe of the metro area. Yes, suburban fringe, auto dependent New Urbanist design is a oxymoron, but it’s pretty. The question I would havd for the developers of Mt. Laurel is: when you jettison any pretension at having a mixed income community and build on the auto dependent fringe, can you still call yourself “New Urbanist”? Sales have been slow in spite of a charming and unusual design aesthetic. The general consensus is that it’s a bit pricey.. and no more than a cute architectural conceit for the upper-middle class.
Homewood: Birmingham’s Coolest Suburb
And finally, a word about one of my favorite of Birmingham’s suburbs, Homewood. Ideally located in the metro area, Homewood is a predominately lower-middle class suburb adjacent to Mountain Brook and Vestavia Hills. Most of Homewood is made up of well-maintained bungalows and small homes and it has a significant number of rental apartments. Thanks to a strong sales tax base, Homewood has managed to maintain a good school system and has continued to attract young families that have turned vast tracts of forgettable bungalows into beautifully remodeled houses in tidy wooded neighborhoods.
Homewood has two very interesting upscale neighborhoods: Mayfair & Hollywood. Hollywood has a wonderful collection of stuccoed, flat roofed houses built in the 1920s that have been remodeled for the the 21st Century. I love Hollywood: great architecture and a great location. Mayfair is more traditional, with its rolling, heavily wooded landscape, it share’s Hollywood’s ideal location for getting anywhere in Birmingham.
In Summary….
Birmingham is a very interesting town with a wide array of housing choices. This is but the first of my essays on Birmingham. After all, it has been my home town for 15 years and as an Urban Geographer, I have much to say about my adopted home. It is my fervent hope that I will be able to use my web site to express my critical thinking about the metro area.. something that is woefully absent from the boosterism so characteristic of what one finds published locally. The Birmingham News, an achingly Conservative newspaper does a fairly good job of covering the city and bankrupt county, but sounds like a the local arm of the Chamber of Commerce when covering the suburbs. I hope that my website counters the flackery and drivel that passes for journalism about the suburbs of our fair metro area.
This is very good information. I am contemplating relocating to the Birmingham area in about a year; I can appreciate your experience as I am originally from Dallas, Texas, the politics and urban sprawl are similar, but on a larger scale in Dallas.
I just wanted to say that I’ve lived in birmingham my entire life and what you’ve said can’t be any more true. I feel like the racial segregation in our state has gone from bad to rediculous, and I personally have had a tough time with african americans who have been racist towards me, a caucasian female, even though I myself am not racist and actually grew up in a predominately african american end of town (I grew up in Centerpoint/Roebuck/Eastlake area. It butts up against the back side of birmingham off of I-20/59). I was the only white girl in my neighborhood. I’m not making this about racism, I’m just glad to see that others notice how rediculous and backwards the segregation is in my neck of the woods! Another thing that you pointed out that I agree with is the 280 corridor’s lack of planning. I really think that because it was planned so poorly (or not at all), it’s going to end up like other areas of town such as Irondale and Riverchase that used to be much like 280 is now that got choked by traffic and came victim to the metro system (for some reason, the busses only go from 280 to places like fairfeild, ensley, and downtown birmingham, where crime rates are significantly higher). I worked at the Summit Lifestyle Center for several years and since they began running the busses from downtown to 280, break-ins, robberies and stabbings/shootings have become a LOT more common.
Another suburb you may be interested in looking at is Trussville. I live about 15 minutes from there and they have gone from 0 to 60 in no time flat.
When I first looked at your site I thought it was going to be another boring site with nothing but numbers, but I was surprised. It was not hard to follow and enjoy.
A five star deserving article with the insider view. A must read for anyone transplanting to Birmingham. Keep it up.
I find this website post interesting, but i really can’t
agree with the contents. I myself believe Jefferson County
and Langford is corrupt as hell and a disaster… that rivals
local Chicagoland television station investigative stories, at
least that’s what i observed when i was a teenager.
I myself cannot agree the urban city of Birmingham is a crime
infested bunch of criminals. Do you know 99% of the people
living within the city limits are good people? Most of the kids and teenagers are doing exactly what the kids in the suburbs do… play basketball !
In Fact, i grew up in an area that makes mountain brook look like nothing, just outside the Chicagoland Northshore… wikipedia that !!!! I grew up where there was NO CRIME it puts Birmingham to shame.. just wikipedia the Chicagoland Northshore and while Deerfield is technically not part of the Northshore, things have changed over the past 25 – 30 years.
I myself experience very little difference, again 99% of the people within the City are good people, there are at 1%…
I think that 1% is crazy to get involved with judges and attorney’s and throw there life away… all it takes is a few weeks, their caught and their history.. probably yanked out of society… But that 1% will not affect you if you have nothing to do with them, no matter what they’ll find away to get themselves in trouble.
The point is, 99% of these people living within the City are good respectable people, certainly not the sterotype we are led to believe in. Probably the very biggest factor for that 1%… the drugs/drinking.. now that is a environment that must be avoided… if you don’t get involved with that, there is viritually no chance of getting involved.
But so called codependence is no different regardless of the socio demographics and yes there is a cultural difference
but nothing to the extent of the stereotype.
Most of the neighborhoods in Birmingham after dark are quiet and safe, come summer though and it’s hot, some people start
doing their drinking and it’s that 1%.. for some reason they
are just naturals of getting themselves into serious trouble,
but 99% of the people are not that way. And regardless or
not there is very little difference at all within the middle class upper/lower neighborhoods.. but i must admit, there are definitely cultural differences
Its all true-what you have said. I lived there for two years and I can say it was the most mundane experience ever. In Birmingham you are either rich or poor, white or black and other classifications aren’t worth considering-see they even did it to me. There is very little diversity and I believe their must be some city entity whose job it is to insure no immigrants stop and take root there-unless you are a doctor. There are Hispanic folk there but they are invisible unless you look for them and you mignt find some serving up a chalupa plate some downtrodden bluecollar and his family on a friday night. The wealthy of Birmingham would never…ever…eat ethnic food. In Birmingham its all about the attitude. You are always aware whose is riding a thoroughbred and whose riding an ass. Birmingham was raised out of the ground by wealthy northern industrialist and financiers. The divide in Birmingham was not created by the old south. It resembles more the social structure of Boston or New York City when there was no personal income tax.
I myself am a young african-american male who grew up in the inner-city of Birmingham.The comments made on this website show a vague reflection of the city where I was raised.Birmingham as a Metro-Area is a wonderful place to live.Like other cities across America, the city it self does have some problems. One of them is not a lack of desire for progression.A brighter future comes with unification on many levels.Division occurs when the same desire is not shared amongst citizens of a community. There is an economic difference between over the mountain and the inner-city Birmingham,but both take pride in there residential areas. Remarks like the only African-Americans in Mountain Brook are servants are the same as if I were to say the only Caucasians I see in my old neighorhood are drug addicts look for a fix.Totally unfair statement.I would like to ask many Americans reading this which is worst and honestly answer yourself. Is it better to be an affluent racist or a poor victim of your environment.I would agree my city leader is a crook hated by poor and rich alike, reminds of G.w.Bush but he is still my president.At least Langford is not spending it on a war in Iraq or Pakistan or trying to buy a Senate seat, I’m sorry person from Northshore.My point is that just as where you live, where ever it is Birmingham is similar just smaller, with a Southern twang.If Higley would rewrite this are article and leave out all of the personal and political crap, that you were not interested in anyway, it would be precise and informative.I left out don’t go to Alabama Adventure full of Rednecks and Gangsters, damn this article is affecting me now.
Interesting article/website.
fyi, the “Versailles” house in Shoal Creek is not empty.
The simple gated community of Stonegate Farms is not part of the gated fortress of Shoal Creek. Why are they combined in your study?
Grew up in one of the established Birmingham neighborhoods mentioned. What a wonderful explanation of what has become of the region. The question now, how do we fix some of the problems? Auto dependence is a fact of life for anyone not living in the city center condo district, and there are very few alternatives to living close to that city center if you have a family, and are concerned with the quality of education. So, we need real answers from brilliant Phd’s. All we have here are eloquently stated problems. Don’t give me too much self righteousness either Dr. Higley, a true believer in new urban design would live within walking distance of the University in that precious little town of yours where you teach. Why did you pick one of the biggest proponents of sub-urban sprawl, Alabaster. What, concerned about schools? Montevallo city schools that dismal? The Birmingham region is begging for real answers, I say buses, we’ll never get light rail, and expanding the roads for more cars will just keep us auto dependent for future generations. Making those new lanes on 65 HOV lanes is probably the only way to go. You eloquently listed the problems, help us find the answers. Get the folks from 280 and I-65 south to the city center. Any ideas? Or just more complaints? Isn’t the point of education and research to find answers and solutions?
As a Birmingham native, who left my beloved home state more than 20 years ago, I think you’ve done a wonderful job of summing up the city. So many things become entrenched in a town’s DNA (live in Chicago suburbs now; Chicago is the most segregated large city in America) that you can despair about the things that need changing yet. But I would think ditching that antiquated constitution would be a good start. If there’s no local accountability, people will not trust their tax dollars to elected officials. Enjoy a real spring!
Very Interesting Article. I was born in Birmingham and my family left the south due to the heavy racism we recieved for being African-American, and I must say being up north (Wisconsin) is like night and day compare to segregation, I recieved in the South. Its funny you mention Mountain Brook, because my family was one of those African-Americans to live in Mountain Brook. I was born in 1981 and I remember growing up being the only Black Kid in the class. My mom was a Nurse at UAB and my Father was a MD at Montclair Hospital, and yet we are well-to-do blacks, I still experience racism every day and I thought it was the normal. Until my Father relocated us to Milwaukee. Althought I still experience racism (more indirectly than directly) its total different, and not so profound as it was in Birmingham. Would I ever go back (I don’t think so), to live anyway maybe visit. But I love reading about your article and it cause me to remember things I forgot about, so thanks Great Article.
As a Birmingham native, I can see that there is merit to some of what you say, however, I have personally NEVER met anyone who moved to the area that did not love it. When you compare how you can live in our area versus most of the rest of the country, you must agree that we have a great deal to offer. We have nearly every amenity that a larger city has without the congestion and high crime. This is NOT the 1960′s, and I believe our universities and medical facilities make this area better educated, and diverse in culture. The many natives who live here have stayed because they truly love it, as in my Hoover neighborhood where adult children often live near their parents or siblings. I also believe that the Birmingham area is one of the friendliest, most welcoming communities around. You should remember that many of us LIKE suburbia. It isn’t hard to fit in at all. Just put a smile on your face, and participate in something!
To the comment from “great homes alabama”: “We have nearly every amenity that a larger city has without the congestion and high crime.” How can you say that when Birmingham’s crime rates rank up there with Memphis and Detriot? I also hate to say it, but you can’t assume that all the people that have stayed there have done so because they “truly love it”. A lot of people just never get the gumption to leave and see what it’s like somewhere else. I can’t tell you the amount of people I know from the area, that in their whole life, have only been to Atlanta and the beaches in Florida.
I am a white female who grew up in the city of Birmingham – in Central Park which borders Ensley. I lived there as a child during the early 1980′s and by this time the neighborhood was majority African American and poor. I was one of two white children in my class at Central Park Elementary. After witnessing a man get shot outside my bedroom window around 1989, we moved to the suburbs, like many white families that moved out of the city during the 70′s and 80′s. These areas of Birmingham – Midfield, Fairfield, Ensley, Central Park – are crime-ridden and unsafe and I believe it has only gotten worse with time unlike the urban areas in some cities that have gone through gentrification over the last several years.
Over the years I have also lived in Trussville, Mountain Brook, Hoover and Inverness. I now live in California. To “great homes alabama” above, I am some one who DID NOT LOVE IT and left. The “attitudes” of the so-called wealthy are just silly, and therefore really annoying. Most of these people have nothing to be snobby about, yet they are and to a high degree. I always think to myself, “Yeah, but you live in Birmingham! Who cares!”
I found your article about the sociopolitical strata among Birmingham neighborhoods very interesting and thought-provoking. Having grown up way outside of the “Magic Circle” of the folks on the Social Register in Mountain Brook, my years at the University of Alabama brought the issue of social class in Alabama (particularly how it played in University society and politics) to my consciousness. Unlike so many of my rural Alabama friends who chose to take flight to metro areas to seek their fortunes, I returned to the Lower Alabama hamlet I called home to practice law. Were it not for the fact that my wife is a Shelby County girl, I would have long forgotten the Birmingham folks and their socially stratified neighborhoods. If the overtures Birmingham citizens make toward elitism concern you, feel free to come to a place where you can make of yourself what you wish — the poor, rural South. You can certainly be a big fish in a small pond here with a little inventiveness and a title such as “Ph.D.” or “M.D.” We’re literally scratching for people to associate with, none of whom, of course, will be found on the Social Registry. By the way, I have a law partner whose family are members of the Mountain Brook Club. Yes, they are different, and are not familiar with our folk ways. They’re nice people, though, from Vestavia and Baptist, to boot.
Keep writing. Next time come to L.A. to do an expose on the socio-economic strata of poor whites, an ethnicity of distinction now that they are officially the only racial classification in America that can still be denigrated among the intellectual elite and in the mainstream media. There’s just not enough material out there on them. As an aside, rednecks generally don’t build country clubs and long-standing neighborhoods. And as a rule, we don’t have a proud architectural or literary heritage.
When will we ever learn? Race is just biology no one is better than the other god not going to be happy. The way we have all destroyed the earth and complain about black and white issues. just live,love and give and rejoice in what has been given to us all!
Well, I moved to Vestavia Hills from Huntsville when I was 11, and boy was I in for culture shock!
My lower-middle class family lived and still do) in fully integrated neighborhoods inside the Huntsville city limits. Race was never an issue, nor was it a big deal. I can’t speak for now, but in the late 1970′s racial equality and peace were the norm in huntsville.
In Vestavia Hills there were 18 Black kids the whole time I was there (8 years), and then they were all in “special ed” programs. Upon graduating from High School I moved to Southside to attend UAB, and to be near the few international people, New Agers, Punks and skaters in the whole metro area. I’ve lived in awesome neighborhood after neighborhood, only to be run out due to extreme violent crime, gangs, drugs and reverse discrimination. Currently, I live in downtown, which is about as dead socially as a country field. The only developments are high-end, expensive condos, and they’re not selling or renting, because Mountain Brook and Homewood are only 3 minutes away and SAFE, so why go through the hassle ? Blacks resent and belittle the downtown loft dwellers, and suburbanites call us “liberal activists”, so it’s almost hopeless. I’ve grown to loathe Birmingham and the entire region. I truly wish it would just implode back into the rugged Appalachian foothills, and become as forgotten as the old capitol at Cahawba. Mobile is coming together in regional cooperation, while Montgomery and Huntsville both seem poised to surpass Birmingham in municipal population. In the aftermath of La La Langford and the constipated Bernard Kincaid, the continued bloodletting of the population, the fawning over the homeless at the expense of neighborhoods, and a city council more excited about aunt Nadine’s church bake sale than economic development, I expect to see Birmingham steal Detroit’s title as “America’s Beruit”.
The elite could care less. And, you’ll never find a higher percentage of millionaires with a fondness for Miller High Life and Thomas Kincaid than in Mountain Brook. Their idea of international travel is Vail, Disneyworld and Augusta.
The region’s blue blood don’t want new blood, and the 26% of Birmingham living in abject poverty (yet highly mobilized politically) don’t want their control of City Hall messed with, so there you have it. Y’all just move on to Nashville, Raleigh and Columbia, SC.
Wow! That’s all I can say. As a African American man who just received a job offer in Birmingham this article was very helpful. I drove down to Birmingham last week. Once I saw the city, it felt as if I had stepped back in time (not 10 years, not 20 years, but at least 30 years)! The physical appearance of the downtown area was horrible! Without reading this article, I could see this was a city that hade abandoned it’s core. Although the offer was great, I refuse to expose my children to what I experience as a child (imposed limits). Yes the suburbs of Birmingham are beautiful, but I noticed the lack of diversity. Unfortunately, companies are relocating from the North and Midwest to the South for tax breaks and low wages. As a mangager, I’ve seen first hand the slave wages paid in the South. A few years back, I visited a plant in Alabama where there were two old ladies (both white) who had been with the company for over 30 years. Each were making $6/hr! Before I left, I made the Plant Mgr give them a raise. This backwards / old-boy system hurst everyone! Needless to say, I won’t be accepting the job offer in Birmingham … money is truly not everything.
I grew up in Deerfield, Il. which at the time was middleclass,
but east of I-41 is mostly old money, that’s a very solid
100,000 in population base. There is no comparison in
these wealthier communities in Birmingham compared to the
Northshore
The biggest factor, politics and corruption. It’s nonexsistent for the most part on the Northshore
Birmingham, including the wealthier areas, in a City where
corruption is the norm, probably the biggest factor. Certainly the City is corrupt, Jefferson County is a disgrace,
and the State, one of the most corrupt.
That is honestly the difference between areas close to the Northshore and Birmingham. I did not know anything of how politics and corruption works because there was none. Relocate to Birmingham, corruption is the norm and it’s thoroughly politicized
There is absolutely no comparison
“As mentioned previously, Mountain Brook is incredibly white. Not one of the 62 African-Americans that lived in Mountain Brook in the 2000 Census was a householder. My guess is that they would mostly be live-in servants. There are plenty of well-to-do African-American families that could afford to live in Mountain Brook, however, they choose not to. This is a mystery I have not been able to figure out at this time. Anyone with some ideas, please leave a note below.”
I believe that there are no Asian or Asian American households in Mountain Brook. So, it is not just the African Americans. Many Asian Americans do not find the place very welcoming either and this includes wealthy Asian Americans!
“There are plenty of well-to-do African-American families that could afford to live in Mountain Brook, however, they choose not to. This is a mystery I have not been able to figure out at this time. Anyone with some ideas, please leave a note below.”
I am an African American that chose NOT to move to Mountain Brook, because even though they have the “best” education system….they have no diversity in the schools. What is that teaching those children? They have no contact with non-white cultures other than their nannies / household workers. What they know about other cultures comes from the media–which can, many times, incorrect. I want my child to feel like it is okay to be African American, Hispanic, Asian, mixed…..and to also interact with people of ALL origins and socio-economical backgrounds.
Natalie Holloway came from the Mountain Brooke area….and of course not all kids are like that, but I said that to say, you have to be around different people so that when you get out into the real world you know how to interact with many types….you have street sense, yes there are dangerous places and you can’t ALWAYS avoid them by living in a fortress on the other side of town.
I grew up in Mountain Brook and now live in Vestavia. I am not sure why people associate diversity more heavily with African Americans than other races. Mountain Brook has many Jewish people, Asian people, & Indians. It is true the Hispanic and African American numbers are low and Caucasian are high. Mountain Brook as a city isn’t exclusionary it is an economic issue and an issue of choice. I found that most people weren’t racist or prejudice in my generation (I’m 28). The comment about hate between African American from the inner city and whites from the suburbs is just not true in my experience. The real issue is the difference between the poor and the wealthy. The actual city of Birmingham has been run so poorly for so long resulting in less opportunity for the people who live there while driving the affluent taxpaying citizens away. This situation polarizes people economically while disenfranchising the poor further due to lack of funds for education. The result of all this is that Birmingham lost its tax base. They haven’t learned and continues to make bad policy decisions toward businesses. The other reason for the exodus of the affluent is crime. More serious crimes happen in Birmingham and the police for seem to be all but powerless to stop it. This is due impart to the city leadership, and pay for Birmingham police. The point I am trying to make is that the real issue in the metro area is one of poor and rich, for the most part the poor live in Birmingham proper and the rich live in the suburbs. The poor just happen to be mostly African American. Until the City of Birmingham gets its act together there will still be a divide between its citizens, one not of race but of wealth.
Hello. I just finished reading your article and found it to be interesting and informative. I am an African American woman who grew up in the Ensley projects, and who left the city of Birmingham nearly 25 years ago. I must say, that much of what your wrote is very true. The city has always been very segregated, both racially and economically. I, however, had the good fortune to attend one of the more progressive schools in the city, the Alabama School of Fine Arts (ASFA). As a result, I feel that I was in a priviledged position where I was able to move through various sectors of the city.
While I was raised in the entirely Black community of the Ensley projects (the brickyard), the vast majority of my classmates were White. Their economic backgrounds ranged from poor, to middle class, to very wealthy. But the common thread that we all had was our love for the arts, and to a degree, the fact that we were all misfits within our own communities. My attendance at the school allowed me access to places that I may not have otherwise been allowed: I attended parties with the pedigreed children of old money Mountain Brook; I played tennis with kids in Vestavia; I skinned catfish with kids from Cahaba; and I had dinner with middle class Black kids in Homewood. And every day, I came home to the brickyard, where I saw drug dealers plying their goods; saw mothers, tired and frustrated after working “over the mountain”, come home and cook dinner for their children; and saw young boys and girls try to find their way to becoming adults. The point that I’m making is that the experience instilled in me a sense that I was not by other people’s low expectations of me. And the fact that my mother instilled that the brickyard was where I was from, not where I was headed.
In my humble opinion, the biggest obstacle to Birmingham’s success is the lack of common effort. The us against them attitude has led to a city that is fractured, with citizens who are distrustful of one another. It is Black against White, rich against poor, and a middle class that is trying desperately to move on up the side of the mountain, all the while hoping that they don’t lose thier footing which would plunge them into poverty.
Over the years, I’ve considered many times moving back to Birmingham. There are many good things about the area, but the things that are wrong are really, really wrong, and are just too much. The lack of cooperation among the different sectors; the lack of diversity; the finger pointing and blaming (the Blacks saying all whites are racists who are keeping them down, and the Whites saying all Blacks are thugs and welfare mothers); the corruption; the disparity between rich and poor – is just too much. And it is just too very sad.
I absolutely agree that the fault lies on both sides of the racial divide. The best example of this on transportation issues. The mass transit system is a joke and would need a major infusion of public money to be any where near adequate. While Charlotte forges ahead with a state of the art mass transit system, Birmingham can’t keep 50 buses running. I am very discouraged by racist comments I hear from my neighbors. I am encouraged by the fact that the students at the University of Montevallo are NOT racist (nor homophobic). Unfortunately, I fear that Montevallo is a pleasant little world that doesn’t really represent what the people of Shelby County are really thinking
Stephen, yes, I too have been privy to racist comments. Isn’t it unnerving when such comments are said in your presence, and the assumption is that you agree with them? It places you in the position of either speaking out against them (which in turn thrusts you into the position of an outsider or sell-out), or remaining silent (which gives the illusion that you are in agreement with the sentiments expressed).
I understand your finding encouragement in the lack of racism expressed by your students. I too was encouraged by the experience I had at ASFA, where racism was absolutely not allowed. In some ways, I thought that my generation would herald in a change of attitudes within the city. Unfortunately, that does not seem to be the case.
I also understand what you mean about Montevallo being a world apart. For many years, I lived in Columbia, MD — a bedroom community between Baltimore and Washington, DC. I found it to be the closest I’ve come to in terms of a place that was all inclusive.
Perhaps I will explore Montevallo the next time I get an inkling to move back home
“Mountain Brook has many Jewish people, Asian people, & Indians.” Kevin..Oh really!! No wonder they say Americans including white Americans cannot count and they need foreigners to work in engineering occupations…
“The racial makeup of the city was 98.64% White, 0.31% Black or African American, 0.04% Native American, 0.65% Asian, 0.02% Pacific Islander, 0.12% from other races, and 0.22% from two or more races. 0.58% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Brook,_Alabama
Kevin, oh, Kevin…
In this case, the “98.64% White” statistic includes the “Jewish” people. Racial diversity usually does not mean people of different religions or denominations. The remaining numbers, such as 0.04% Native American, 0.65% Asian, are hardly diverse.
Last I heard, Mountain Brook High School had two Asian students, adopted from abroad, five Hispanics and no African Americans..is this the whitest town in America? One white school boy from Mountain Brook took home an Asian girl and her parents told her not to step into their house. The only problem was this happened half way round the world in Singapore where his parents are on assignment and the girl was a local, a daughter of a Chinese multimillionaire! You can take a Mountain Brooker out of bigotry but you cannot take bigotry out of a Mountain Brooker!