By David Sher
To grow or not to grow–that is the question.
A couple of years ago I sat down with the CEO of a successful Birmingham family owned business.
The purpose of the meeting was to discuss how we might grow our Birmingham region. Continue reading Mountain Brook parents, aren’t we tired of losing our children?
By David Sher
“We dare defend our rights.”
Yes, that is our Alabama motto.
But we don’t seem to be given those rights in Alabama. Continue reading Gas prices soar, Alabama denies our rights
By David Sher
When I first began publishing ComebackTown ten years ago, comments were often dominated by the Birmingham haters and the so called CAVE people—Citizens Against Virtually Everything.
Birmingham was going nowhere and the Birmingham haters were relentless. Continue reading Birmingham haters—Eat your hearts out
On December 4, 2014, I did something I had never done before and have never had to do again.
On that day, as publisher of ComebackTown, I published a column which I naively titled, “UAB lucky to have Ray Watts as President.”
Two days earlier Dr. Watts had announced the cancellation of UAB Blazer football.
The response was immediate, ugly, and personal. Continue reading UAB President Watts had a rough 2014—what’s happened since?
My wife and I got on the shuttle bus leaving Protective Stadium following a UAB football game.
We walked to the back, sat down, and watched as people boarded.
A young couple, likely UAB students, sat down in front of us. The male was African American and his girlfriend was white. He put his arm around her and she laid her head on his shoulder.
And then do you know what happened? Continue reading Sick and tired of Birmingham being stereotyped as racist
Birmingham and Atlanta were about the same size in 1950.
Atlanta’s population is now five times greater than Birmingham’s.
What happened? Continue reading Oops! Atlanta may be following lead of Homewood and Mountain Brook
I had an interesting conversation with a life-long friend.
I was fretting about Birmingham’s inability to keep pace with other regions.
He said I was totally missing what is about to happen. Continue reading Now is Birmingham’s time
I actually wrote this column last year, but decided not to publish it.
It just seemed too farfetched.
But now that the Senate has passed a trillion dollar infrastructure bill, this could be Birmingham’s and Alabama’s big opportunity. Continue reading Birmingham bullet train to Atlanta
A graph of Jefferson County’s population over the past 50 years looks eerily like the EKG of a dead man.
It’s a straight line that goes neither up nor down. It lays dormant like a dead body.
Unfortunately that flat line now appears to represent the good ‘ole’ days. Continue reading How to turn around a shrinking Jefferson County
It’s very difficult to publish a piece these days and not appear to be political.
And this piece is not meant to be political—but it is concerning.
It is true of both Alabama Democrats and Alabama Republicans. Continue reading This is not acceptable, Alabama