Birmingham Falls to 2nd Biggest City in AL

Monday April 24

Birmingham Fun Fact: Birmingham is the only place in the whole world where all three ingredients for steel; coal, limestone and iron ore, can be found near each other.

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Why is Birmingham shrinking?

Since 1960 Birmingham’s population has been slowly declining and has finally dropped out of the #1 spot for biggest cities in Alabama. Huntsville is now the biggest city with a population of 215,006, just above Birmingham’s 200,733.

This news brings up some questions…

Why has this decline been happening for so long? Are there some silver linings? Can we turn it around?

Now, despite having a declining population in the city of Birmingham, we are still by far the state’s largest metropolitan area and economic center which gives the city some pride. The Birmingham-Hoover metro area grew 5% and now has 1.1 million people to Huntsville’s 491,000.

This vast difference in metropolitan size is why many leaders in the city don’t think falling out of #1 will be a marketing problem. When people are looking to move somewhere they are mostly looking at how many people live there, how many opportunities are available and how many amenities/activities there are. Not if the city is growing or declining compared to another city in the state. Huntsville has a long way to go before it catches Birmingham in economic opportunities or overall metropolitan size.

There are apparently 2 main issues that have caused the decline in population: education and crime.

Birmingham schools consistently rank lower than other school systems around the area and many schools broke off from Birmingham’s school system in the 1960s and started their own systems because of this and the desegregation laws that were passed.

The rise in crime rates in Birmingham city have also made many people leave the area to either different cities or to the suburbs. The movement known as the ‘white flight’ over the mountain is still continuing to this day and has been a result of the poor school systems and higher crime rates in the downtown side of the mountain.

If you love Birmingham and believe we're the best city in Alabama, throw a little elbow at our neighbors to the north ;) and show your support by rocking this gear!

Silver Linings

• Despite the overall population decline, Birmingham’s residential population growth is up 38% over the last 10 years and is still increasing!

• Birmingham is also a major hub for medical centers, emerging hub for tech start-ups and logistics center gives the city some hope for positive growth in the future.

• Birmingham has all the minor league sports team a city can ask for! Birmingham Stallions (USFL), Birmingham Barons (Baseball), Birmingham Legion FC (Soccer), Birmingham Squadron (G League Basketball), Birmingham Bulls (Hockey).

• Downtown Birmingham is flourishing into a bright, walkable scene with restaurants, bars, parks, breweries, and much more!

So, despite the declining population in Birmingham city there is hope that Birmingham as a whole can become a safer, more complete city with less people. The focus is on getting better, not bigger.