Cheap housing and short commutes to a buzzy little city. There are baseball games, breweries, art, old theaters and a foodie scene worthy of national attention.

Birmingham is located in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, which lends itself to some pretty incredible scenery and there’s lots of good, live music being played in the plentiful venues, juke joints and festivals.

Here's a local's pov on the city: *In the past 10 years Birmingham has gone through a radical change. More jobs in medical and tech. Important to this revival is the restoration of historic areas like Downtown, Southside and and Avondale. They have the vibe of Austin or Portland. If you live in those areas it's a friendly, eclectic environment. Worth a look. To maybe further refine the answer, in general if you're a very conservative person, and prefer an environment where most people you’ll run into are roughly identical in outlook, the suburbs are best. Homewood, Vestavia Hills, and North Shelby county. If you're conservative but happy to hang with liberals, liberal but happy to hang with conservatives, libertarian and open to pretty much anything, find the occasional Millennial with spiked hair to be interesting but not at all offensive, and like funky locally owned coffee shops instead of Starbucks..Downtown, Southside, and Avondale are ground zero. We preferred the latter to the former.*

The Buzz

The Best Thing About Birmingham?

Local, county and state government is a mess. While Birmingham is a liberal bastion and has reinvented itself after a painful and ugly past, politics and corruption can still be problematic and transplants are not as common as some other southern cities so the welcome may not be quite as warm. But the summers certainly are hot and humid. If you get even just a little bit outside the city, life is going to slow to a Pabst-swilling crawl.

When you're in a blue spot largely surrounded by red things like politics and religion can get a bit tense. Here's a transplant with a pov on these topics: *It's definitely the most religious place I've lived. Everywhere else I've lived I just assumed that anyone I met that was my age was not religious, that strategy has failed me pretty consistently here. That being said, I'd say religious people in the millennial-and-younger age bracket are still the minority and we've met plenty of like-minded people as ourselves. I wouldn't say it's different enough from the rest of the country to be a major decision-making factor. Take this with a grain of salt, this is all anecdotal.*

*Despite AL's political position at large, Birmingham is pretty blue. Like most metropolitan areas in the country, you'll find a pretty diverse mixture of political beliefs but urban areas tend to trend more liberal and Birmingham is no different. You'll find this less true the further you go from the city.*


Politics/Religiong

The Worst Thing About Birmingham?

B’ham is a city of distinctive neighborhoods—the bustling Southside with its towering buildings and the UAB campus; industrial downtown, now being renovated into lofts and cool restaurants; hipster-centric Avondale with its artisanal breweries and coffee shops all accessible by foot. 

With about a million people in the metro area and just over 200,000 in the city itself, Birmingham’s big enough to have an international airport, The Birmingham Museum of art and its own version of the High Line (Railroad Park) and a bustling food hall (Pitzitz.)  It’s small enough to be much more affordable than Atlanta or New Orleans. A five to fifteen minute commute is about all you need to live, work and play in Birmingham. 

Homewood is the best of liberal Birmingham but more expensive and the housing market there is very competitive for renters and/or buyers. A similar vibe can be had in Crestwood, Forest Park and/or parts of Avondale.

The Atomic Lounge is James Beard noteworthy for its crafty/wacky cocktails, like the Sex Panther, an old-fashioned riff made with bourbon, rum and Cynar and garnished with a temporary panther tattoo, all while wearing one of the full-body animal costumes the bar keeps available upon request.

If you want to check out all the shenanigans locals get up to here is the calendar of festivals and events: https://www.birminghamal.org/festivals-and-events/


Lifestyle Of Birmingham

Birmingham threads a tight needle: It’s small, but diverse. Charming, but sophisticated. The city hasn’t grown so fast that there’s outward sprawl. Entrepreneurs and residents can still grab historic downtown factory space and other creative space affordably.

Threading The Needle

Why You Should Move Here Now?

**The Best Thing About Birmingham?** 

Cheap housing and short commutes to a buzzy little city. There are baseball games, breweries, art, old theaters and a foodie scene worthy of national attention. 

Birmingham is located in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, which lends itself to some pretty incredible scenery and there’s lots of good, live music being played in the plentiful venues, juke joints and festivals. 


**The Worst Thing About Birmingham?** 

Local, county and state government is a mess. While Birmingham is a liberal bastion and has reinvented itself after a painful and ugly past, politics and corruption can still be problematic and transplants are not as common as some other southern cities so the welcome may not be quite as warm. But the summers certainly are hot and humid. If you get even just a little bit outside the city, life is going to slow to a Pabst-swilling crawl.


**How You Living?** 

B’ham is a city of distinctive neighborhoods—the bustling Southside with its towering buildings and the UAB campus; industrial downtown, now being renovated into lofts and cool restaurants; hipster-centric Avondale with its artisanal breweries and coffee shops all accessible by foot. 

With about a million people in the metro area and just over 200,000 in the city itself, Birmingham’s big enough to have an international airport, The Birmingham Museum of art and its own version of the High Line (Railroad Park) and a bustling food hall (Pitzitz.)  It’s small enough to be much more affordable than Atlanta or New Orleans. A five to fifteen minute commute is about all you need to live, work and play in Birmingham. 

Homewood is the best of liberal Birmingham but more expensive and the housing market there is very competitive for renters and/or buyers. A similar vibe can be had in Crestwood, Forest Park and/or parts of Avondale.

The Atomic Lounge is James Beard noteworthy for its crafty/wacky cocktails, like the Sex Panther, an old-fashioned riff made with bourbon, rum and Cynar and garnished with a temporary panther tattoo, all while wearing one of the full-body animal costumes the bar keeps available upon request.


**Why You Should Move Here Now?** 

Birmingham threads a tight needle: It’s small, but diverse. Charming, but sophisticated. The city hasn’t grown so fast that there’s outward sprawl. Entrepreneurs and residents can still grab historic downtown factory space and other creative space affordably.


Snuggled inside of the Jones Valley, Birmingham is its own urban oasis in northern Alabama. Although there are just over 200,000 people within the city limits, the greater Birmingham area is home to roughly a million total people living in a wide variety of neighborhoods and suburbs that stretch up into the mountains around Magic City. Birmingham is at the crossroads of a number of state and interstate highways that lead locals directly to cities like Nashville (north), Atlanta (east), Montgomery (south) and Chattanooga (northeast) in a straight shot.


The Area

Several colleges, such as the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and Birmingham-Southern College call Magic City their home. The Southside is one of the best neighborhoods for college aged folks not only due to its proximity to UAB, but on account of its vibes as well. It’s both affordable while still being upscale and modern. A hot restaurant and bar scene also pervades throughout the neighborhood.  
- Southside 
- College Hills 
- Five Points South

College Students

Southside

Despite what others might say about the south, young professionals can find an urban environment to call home in the heart of Birmingham. Highland Park is a great place to start looking for young professionals. It’s close to downtown for those looking to work in the city, and its proximity to the Entertainment District, Five Points South, and UAB gives the location a leg up for those looking to be close to work and the social scene. The aforementioned Five Points South neighborhood itself is also a solid option for young professionals. The nightlife home of Birmingham, Five Points offers its residents the opportunity to be right in the heart of the action for a reasonable price.
- Highland Park
- Five Points South
- Lakeview


Young Professionals

Highland Park 

An aptly named neighborhood due to its proximity to the action, Central City is one of the best neighborhoods for those without kids, and likely offers the most urban feel in the Birmingham area. Replete with bars, restaurants, parks and coffee shops, there’s always something to do for those without kids. Renters and buyers alike will be happy to hear that prices are more palatable here then comparable downtown neighborhoods in similar cities.
- Five Points South
- Highland Park
- Fountain Heights


DINKs/SINKs

Five Points South

Despite being a southern metropolitan dominated by suburbia, Birmingham is known for being a relatively liberal and inclusive area. Homewood is likely the best of liberal Birmingham but more expensive while offering a dense suburban feel. More generally, Birmingham is home to one of the largest Pride celebrations in the south, Central Alabama Pride, and Birmingham’s local chapter of the national PFLAG organization is known for providing support, education, advocacy, networking opportunities, and resources to LGBTQ communities.
- Homewood
- Crestwood
- Central City


LGBTQ+

Homewood

The expansive suburbia around Birmingham is the knee-jerk for most families to move. Given the layout of the city, some of these suburbs are closer to downtown than other neighborhoods in the city itself. One suburb that is particularly popular is Mountain Brook. A ten minute drive from downtown Birmingham, Mountain Brook has a great school system and the lowest crime rates in the metropolitan area. It also has a pretty good variety of excellent restaurants and lots of shopping options. 
- Mountain Brook
- Vestavia Hills
- Homewood


Families

Mountain Brook

Birmingham

**What is it like to live in Birmingham, AL?**

In the past 10 years Birmingham has gone through a radical change. More jobs in medical and tech. Important to this revival is the restoration of historic areas like Downtown, Southside and and Avondale. They have the vibe of Austin or Portland. If you live in those areas it's a friendly, eclectic environment. Worth a look. To maybe further refine the answer, in general if you're a very conservative person, and prefer an environment where most people you’ll run into are roughly identical in outlook, the suburbs are best. Homewood, Vestavia Hills, and North Shelby county. If you're conservative but happy to hang with liberals, liberal but happy to hang with conservatives, libertarian and open to pretty much anything, find the occasional Millennial with spiked hair to be interesting but not at all offensive, and like funky locally owned coffee shops instead of Starbucks..Downtown, Southside, and Avondale are ground zero. We preferred the latter to the former.

**What is it like to live in Birmingham, AL?**

Birmingham is a fabulous well kept secret in Alabama. It is amazing how many visitors from around the world and .. yes, even some from up “north” come to Alabama and are blown away by what a great place it is to live. I was born in Alabama about 50 miles southeast of Birmingham and moved here in 1978 to spend my last 2 years of college at UAB. There would only be probably 2 or 3 places in the world that can match what Birmingham has in the medial community. So many outstanding hospitals and doctors and researchers from all over the world live here.

Birmingham has several complete communities that represent specific clusters of people but there is a broad diversity in every community. My oldest daughter was married 10 years ago and of her bridesmaids - one was from India and another from China. Many of the Birmingham area great students go on to highly advanced careers all over the world.

Birmingham represents a great range of house prices ranging across the entire price range and generally well below many other cities for fantastic houses. On the upper end 7,000 + square foot homes are in the $600K and up range and we have some homes at 25,000 sq feet. Just 60 miles away to the east, south and north are fabulous lakes with thousands of gorgeous lake homes.

Birmingham has quite an advanced research and startup community with quite a bit of local funding from local VCs. There are a lot of global businesses that are based here and are quite well run.

In Birmingham, hospitality is something we are well known for. Of course, this takes a little getting used to for some people that come from more isolated cities where neighbors do not know each other.

**What is it like to live in Birmingham, AL?**

I grew up in Birmingham and when young, viewed it as an unsophisticated backwater. I couldn’t wait to get away. At that time the steel industry was the economic hub of the city. I did move away and returned in the 1980s. By then it had become a delightful place to live. I had a beautiful apartment in a gorgeous old house on the Southside. New trendy, restaurants with outstanding cuisine had moved into Birmingham, as the center of economic growth changed and the University of Alabama in Birmingham became the largest employer. The University attracted educated people from all over the world, creating a demand for a higher level of amenities. I moved to Pittsburgh for a year and couldn’t wait to return to Birmingham. I attended law school in Birmingham and wanted to stay, but ended up moving to Chattanooga, TN to take a job. At first I hated Chattanooga, which suffered greatly by comparison. However, over the past twenty years, Chattanooga has changed dramatically for the better. However, I would still prefer to live inBirmingham if I had the choice.

**What do you like, and not like about living in Birmingham**

I wrote a pretty detailed post about this a few weeks ago for someone who was moving from Charlotte, so some of the points are specific to what that person was asking. I'll include my answers here as well with a few updates:

I know I'm a little late to this post, but my wife and I moved here from a large city from elsewhere in the country earlier this year. We're early 30's also non-religious, don't have any children. Thought I'd share my experience (good, bad, and general) with moving here as it relates to some of what you've brought up and just living here in general:

It's by no means how it's portrayed in popular media, but it's definitely the most religious place I've lived. Everywhere else I've lived I just assumed that anyone I met that was my age was not religious, that strategy has failed me pretty consistently here. That being said, I'd say religious people in the millennial-and-younger age bracket are still the minority and we've met plenty of like-minded people as ourselves. I wouldn't say it's different enough from the rest of the country to be a major decision-making factor. Take this with a grain of salt, this is all anecdotal.

Despite AL's political position at large, Birmingham is pretty blue. Like most metropolitan areas in the country, you'll find a pretty diverse mixture of political beliefs but urban areas tend to trend more liberal and Birmingham is no different. You'll find this less true the further you go from the city.

Everything is closed on Sundays and Mondays? Pretty much other than breweries and all the normal national chains, it's difficult to find a fun place to go hang out on a Sunday or Monday.

The city is big enough so that you can find pretty much anything you're looking for here, but not so big that it feels incredibly spaced out and disparate.

Each day Birminghamsters and the roads they drive continue to impress me with how terrible they can be. This city by far has the worst drivers and roads I've ever experienced. I have primarily lived on the west-coast where roads and highways feel bigger and newer, so maybe I've just been spoiled.

The weather is pretty nice, you get all four seasons which can be a pro or a con depending on your perspective. Coming from the west, I was not prepared for how much it rains. I don't know why this isn't talked about more, but it rains a lot here. People complain about the heat but I don't think it's that bad, but I was not mentally or physically prepared to deal with so much rain.

I have never experienced tornados before, and they're definitely a thing, but not like, a defining weather thing. They're part of life to some degree but not like other parts of the tornado-range country.

The food/bar/night life scene is pretty impressive. For a city its size, I was very surprised by the diversity and quality of the food and drink available.

**WHY I LOVE BIRMINGHAM, AL - Raquel Lily Vlog #6**

A lot of people always ask me "Why Alabama???"

Then comes all the stereotypes, negative comments, and general misunderstanding about the place that I call home.  Well, for all you who are wondering what the deal is, here is a video on why I love my city.  

Birmingham, Alabama

Magic City

Looklyloo Score: 71

We're on it!