By David Sher
Let me get this out of the way: Some people are going to accuse me of being a bit too optimistic.
That is all okay.
A dose of optimism is likely what we need.
Birmingham has always been known as the city of perpetual promise.
And for the first time in modern history, we now have an opportunity to validate that promise.
This is a two-step process and Birmingham has demonstrably taken a leap forward on that first step.
Step One: A City that’s Becoming Safe
Two years ago, Birmingham recorded 152 homicides — breaking a record that had stood since 1933. At that moment, the idea that Birmingham could be known as a safe city seemed not just unlikely, but impossible.
And yet, here we are.
In 2025, Birmingham finished the year with 88 homicides — the first time in a decade the city came in under 100. That’s nearly a 50% drop in a single year. And Police Chief Michael Pickett noted that while other cities were also seeing crime fall, Birmingham wasn’t just following the national trend — it was doubling it.
Now 2026 is shaping up to be even more extraordinary. Chief Pickett recently announced a 48% reduction in homicides compared to the same period last year — and his department has made arrests in all 11 homicide cases so far this year, achieving a 100% clearance rate. That clearance rate is a dramatic leap from roughly 30% just a few years ago.
This matters far beyond the statistics. A city that is safe attracts businesses, young families, investment, and talent. Safety is the foundation upon which everything else is built. Birmingham is building it right now, in real time.
Birmingham has a ways to go, but this is a promising start.
Step Two: Schools that Give Every Child a Chance
Let’s be honest. Birmingham City Schools have struggled. The ratings have been low, and the idea of dramatically improving an urban school system has seemed, to many people, like an impossible task.
But before you give up on that idea, look at what just happened in Mississippi.
For decades, Mississippi was the punchline of every education ranking — the state that sat at the very bottom. Then something remarkable happened. Mississippi rose from 49th in the country on national tests in 2013 to a top 10 state for fourth-grade reading levels, even as test scores fell almost everywhere else. Adjusted for poverty and other factors, Mississippi now ranks first in fourth-grade reading and math.
How? Not by spending dramatically more money, but by changing strategy. The state changed the way reading is taught, raised academic standards, gave every school a letter grade from A to F, and deployed literacy and math coaches into low-performing elementary schools. Accountability. Coaching. Evidence-based instruction. Bold leadership willing to make hard calls.
If Mississippi can transform an entire state, Birmingham can transform one school system.
And here’s the encouraging part — Alabama is already proving it’s possible. Alabama ranked 1st among all states in math recovery and 3rd in reading recovery between 2019 and 2024. In fourth-grade math, Alabama climbed from 52nd in the nation in 2019 to 32nd in 2024 — the largest score increase in the country. Alabama and Louisiana are the only two states where fourth graders are now scoring higher in both reading and math than they were before the pandemic.
The playbook exists. The state has already started using it. The question is whether Birmingham City Schools will embrace it with the urgency this moment demands.
Birmingham, the City Potential Promise
Birmingham already has so much going for it. It’s a city of unexpected beauty, world-class healthcare, incredible generosity, and a quality of life that quietly outperforms its reputation. It’s a city where you can get from one side of town to the other in 20 minutes, where neighbors show up for each other and where there is a real sense of community.
It’s early, but there is reason for optimism.
Birmingham has been held back by crime and a poor educational system. One of those is in the process of being solved before our very eyes.
Solve the other, and Birmingham doesn’t just come back. Birmingham becomes a model for every mid-sized American city wondering if transformation is still possible.
It is.
We’re just a step or two from proving it.
David Sher is the founder and publisher of ComebackTown. He’s past Chairman of the Birmingham Regional Chamber of Commerce (BBA), Operation New Birmingham (REV Birmingham), and the City Action Partnership (CAP).
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Invite David to speak for free to your group about how we can have a more prosperous metro Birmingham. dsher@comebacktown.com
Those are all laudable achievements for Birmingham city and its leadership rightly deserves praise. Your last point about travel time really spoke to me – over spring break, my family and I visited Tampa. While Tampa has a lot of neat stuff, the travel time is out of control, it can take 30 minutes or more to go two miles! So frustrating and a waste of time.
l love the improvements moving forward in our city. Crime is down, Schools are better than in recent times. I am still perplexed as the small steps neighborhoods are not taking, i.e. trash scattered around curves, in vacant lots, on storefronts, and everywhere almost. I have posted that neighborhood association heads could gather people for a trash pickup day atleast once a month. People need to be reminded if caught littering, is a healthy fine. Eyesore properties and ragedy streets puts a damper on the beauty of the city.
I agree Eliza and I have seen you posted before other places. If you will look around it is not just private individuals, the worse offender in the state is Aldot, they leave more trash including orange cones everyplace. It starts way above Birmingham and is called ‘I do not care’.
Your report for Birmingham is very positive and important. That is good for the city. Now it is time for the surrounding municipalities and counties in the metropolitan are to follow that leadership. It continues the be an underlying issue, mutual collaboration and cooperation, the best solution likely to be merger.
It is so good to see that Birmingham itself is leading.
We all hope the homicide rate continues to drop and our cities become more safe.
As far as schools that give every child a chance, why hasn’t the state legislature considered expanding the School Choice law to include Open Enrollment for all public schools within county boundaries? The funding could follow the student to the new chosen school. There is an inequality of student performance amongst public schools in neighboring districts. Providing open enrollment could incentive poorly performing schools/districts.
The only reason I can think this has not been presented to the legislature is because maybe some people would rather schools/districts be separated by things other than performance.
John, thanks for continuing to follow ComebackTown. I appreciate your insight. Would you consider writing a guest column on School Choice? My email is dsher@comebacktown.com
Because the school choice law isn’t about “school choice”. It’s about giving wealthy people more taxpayer money while simultaneously crippling the public schools.
$7,000 for students to go to whatever PRIVATE school they want. This means that students will be pulling out of public schools — making the quality of the public schools worse. It also means that people who are already wealthy — the people running the private schools — will be profiting more from any student that uses the taxpayer provided $7,000 to switch from public school to private school.
The people running the government schools might notice the competition and improve the quality of their “education”. If not, they would not continue to exist indefinitely. Only the fittest would survive.
John, try not to degrade schools who are doing great and only part of it has to do with money. Most of it is the school system itself, they do not appear here in Birmingham if you succed in school or not. I speak from experience as 2 of my children attended Trussville schools and the other 2 attended Shades Valley. The difference in approach to education is like turning a light switch off and on.
We need a separation of school and state.