By David Sher
There’s a moment in life when you meet someone and you understand why you get out of bed every morning.
I had one of those moments recently when I ran into a man who told me he’d been reading ComebackTown for years. He was genuinely excited to meet me. But I was more excited to meet him — because he personified everything this column has been about since it was first published in 2012.
The Decision
His story began during the 2008 financial crisis. He and his wife grew up in rural Alabama and moved to Birmingham for a good job. Things were going well until the recession hit and he lost his job.
He searched desperately for work in Birmingham and the surrounding area. The opportunities simply weren’t there.
His only options were to stay and suffer, or leave and prosper.
He and his wife moved to Dallas, where he found a good job in the financial industry. What he thought would be a temporary move — just a few years to weather the storm — turned into twelve years away from home.
There was a cost. Both sets of parents were upset. He had multiple conversations with his parents and in-laws, trying to help them understand this wasn’t about abandoning Alabama or rejecting his roots. It was about survival and opportunity — about the simple economic reality that the jobs weren’t there for him in Birmingham.
The Bridge
Here’s where the story took an unexpected turn.
When he started reading ComebackTown, he found something he desperately needed: a way to explain his decision to his family. He began forwarding posts to his parents and in-laws — articles that laid out the economic realities he was facing, the structural challenges Birmingham confronted, and why leaving wasn’t a rejection of home but a necessary response to circumstances beyond his control.
The column became a bridge. It gave him language and evidence to help his loved ones understand. It turned a family conflict into a conversation grounded in facts and regional economics rather than emotions and perceived abandonment.
I don’t think I fully understood the impact of this work until that moment. Writing about regional economic development always felt important in an abstract sense. But hearing that these words had given someone the tools to preserve relationships while pursuing opportunity — that was something else entirely.
Back to Birmingham
After twelve years in Dallas, something shifted. He and his wife missed home and wanted to come back. It took time and patience, but eventually he found a good job in the financial industry here.
They made the move.
And they’re happy. Genuinely, deeply happy.
His family — the same parents who had been so upset about his departure — are now ecstatic that he and his wife have returned.
His journey illustrates a truth ComebackTown has tried to communicate since its inception: regional economic strength depends on job creation.
He didn’t leave Birmingham because he wanted to. He didn’t want to spend twelve years away from his family and community. He left because the regional economy couldn’t support him. When he finally had the chance to return, he took it immediately.
In Birmingham, the Job Has to Find You
The Dallas-Fort Worth area is now home to 24 Fortune 500 companies — Southwest Airlines, American Airlines, Texas Instruments, Toyota, Frito-Lay, and Kimberly-Clark among them.
Birmingham has two: Regions Financial and Vulcan Materials.
My new friend explained that in Dallas, he had unlimited job opportunities.
He said in Dallas, you find the job.
In Birmingham, the job has to find you.
Focus Relentlessly on Job Creation
This man’s story is about understanding that thriving communities are built on economic opportunity. When people have good jobs in their hometowns, they stay. They raise families. They invest in their communities. They build lives.
Conversely, when the jobs disappear, people leave — and that’s not failure on their part.
It’s a failure of regional economic policy.
The solution isn’t complicated. We need to focus relentlessly on job creation. We need structures that enable regional cooperation without eliminating local control.
And we need to build an economy where people like this man don’t have to choose between their careers and their families — where they can build good lives in the place they love.
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
YES!!! TRULY REMAKABLE STORY!!!
Yes its the job and all that goes with it to make it a pleasant place to live.
Other Prime issues continue: local split government and taxation, both deterents of great significance. Look at Florida and Tennessee. What’s happened there that is not happening in Alabama ? It is quite obvious! Jacksonvile, one city and county combined. No state income tax. Miami-Dade is the same. Nashville, another city county combiined and no state income tax. Both are growing. Center city Birmingham shrinking. This insanity has got to be stopped! Where are the seinsible people, the politicians? Where are the citizens? Are they stuck in a cloud? Wake up Alabama and stop hurting yourself!
Love of Home is still basic. While for similar reasons Birmingham is my home town forever, yet the job I wanted could not be found there. Still I will allways love the place where my heart is.
All the rest is seriously good housekeeping!
Agreed, but to be fair, we can’t pretend that eliminating the state income tax or consolidation is some magic bullet. Atlanta metro has a state income tax and is extremely fragmented, and look at its trajectory. Same with Raleigh Durham, same with Phoenix. Bham certainly needs to find a way to work together towards common goals and put the pettiness and competitiveness behind us, but we need to cater to our particular strengths and double down…growing in our own way, without joining the race to the bottom to eliminate state taxes (and all the services they pay for). Beyond these factors, one thing that stands in the way is the local attitude towards growth. Many in our metro WANT things to remain exactly as they are, without any growth at all. People are daily advocating for policies that limit growth, lest we “become Nashville” or “become Atlanta”. They feel that things are just fine as they are, stats to the contrary and lack of quality jobs be damned! In contrast, the places you mentioned have not only embraced growth but pursued it relentlessly over decades. In sum, your attitude and mine are just not shared with a large segment of the population in this metro and state. How can we achieve “growth” in this context?
This confirms what I have suspected. That many would like to move to this area but have trouble finding a job here.
I have experienced the same thing. Family and former friends treating me differently because I had to leave Birmingham to pursue my career. They reacted with a mix of rage and jealousy – as if it’s my fault that Birmingham can’t provide the type of jobs or future that so many people need.
I’ve found most friends who ended up staying in the Birmingham area got a job in their parents real estate business, insurance office or law firm. If they didn’t have family connections and a business that could be handed down from generation to generation, they fled for cities that could provide a mixture of good jobs, entertainment, and didn’t have the stigma attached to it that Birmingham still has to this day.
David, think of Comeback Town as a mosaic. Each post is a tiny grain that moves the needle just a bit. Each reader’s response (whether a comment or not) is part of a larger, virtual mosaic.
Your dedication to this cause (along with your relentless optimism) DOES make a difference! Thank you!
Wednesday, July 29, 2026
Bill Ivey
…Yeah well here’s a tiny “mosaic”…
It seems to me at lot of time is spent here on what should really be taken as “common sense”…like…Daaahhhh…!!…
I’m 78, and if I hadn’t learned the simple lessons here by about the 6th grade, I would just have make the Big Exit from this here Uni-Verse !!…Thank You…LOL !!
~ Ballard from Huntsville
I am well into retirement and frequently meet people with similar stories of career paths leading out of BHM but making their way back as soon as possible. The upside is that, while not well known outside of the South, BHM is an authentically desirable place to live. Its time is coming.
As to multiple governments you may not find an area with as many municipalities as Dallas/Ft Worth and they fight like cats & dogs stealing corporate headquarters & even sports teams from each other. Apologies to those I offend but DFW’s weather & traffic make Atlanta seem like an oasis. Yes you can make a better living in these mega cities but you can’t make a better quality of life there.
I too moved from Birmingham in 2002
for job opportunity. I miss my hometown and I think of Birmingham often.
I moved to Greenville SC, what a difference! Look that city up, come visit.
Birmingham leaders should visit here and implement some of what leaders in Greenville have done.
I’ll always love Birmingham and visit occasionally. Interesting to see what changes have occurred and what hasn’t changed at all.
I have also moved away; if I didn’t get the education opportunities I received, I would have run away nonetheless. The employment opportunities are simply not there (the cost of living is, of course), and Birmingham in the 90s (when I was coming of age and graduating high school) was virtually a war zone, and I wanted nothing to do with it.
I’ve bounced around from Huntsville to Houston, to California, Knoxville, back to Huntsville, Milwaukee, New York, Florida, back to Texas, and now I’m in the Dayton, OH area. Economic ebbs and flows and corporate decisions decided where I ended up. I was the only one to leave; I’ve been gone from Birmingham for more than half my life, only visiting for holidays or special events with friends and relatives. There is no resentment from my relatives for leaving, as they already knew it was in the cards for me (some of them want to leave too, but they’re too deeply rooted in Birmingham for that to happen).
Entrepreneurship and education are the keys. Policies and institutional structures can clear obstacles or align incentives, but they do not create jobs. Entrepreneurs generate the jobs that strengthen communities and attract talent. In recent large-scale published research examining the effects of regulatory efficiency and institutional policy across 125,000 entrepreneurs in 86 countries (https://www.emerald.com/ijebr/article/32/11/219/1380473), my colleague and I found that formal education is critical to whether supportive institutional conditions translate into opportunity-driven entrepreneurship that scales rather than necessity-driven economic activities.
Without an active baseline of entrepreneurial activity and a workforce equipped by education to support that activity, even the best cooperation structures or tax frameworks are empty vessels. A strong entrepreneurial culture and solid educational foundations generate opportunities even under imperfect policies. Keep focusing relentlessly on education and the jobs will follow.
Dallas’s Fortune 500 roster derived largely from entrepreneurial actions and skilled people, not merely from governance models. Our local trends are positive and the future is bright. As in other cities, access to higher education and awareness of its vital importance remain challenges, but we’re addressing them. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. David, thanks for these pieces that stimulate discussion. You provide an important community service with your blog.