By Doug Martinson
Editor’s note: Huntsville columnist Doug Martinson and I recently sat down for lunch in Birmingham. Our conversation reminded me how much Birmingham and Huntsville have to learn about each other. Doug later wrote this column about our meeting, the origins of our two columns, and his family’s long tradition of civic involvement:
Continue reading What Happened When Birmingham And Huntsville Sat Down for Lunch
By Judith Chi
In 2024 our family visited Birmingham, never having set foot in Alabama before.
It was love at first sight – lush trees, charming neighborhoods, spectacular food, and a culture of collective care. Truly a dream come true.
It’s now 2026 and nothing could have prepared us for our lived reality. For any professional and family thinking about moving here, I want to share with you the real story of what life is like here, beyond the happily ever after. Continue reading Mountain Brook Woman Writes Beautiful Love Letter to Birmingham
By Prioleau Alexander
Editor’s note: This column appeared recently in the Huntsville Real-Time News coordinated by Doug Martinson. I think it’s important for people in Birmingham to know what ‘s going on with our Alabama neighbor to the North.
Residents of Huntsville, Alabama don’t understand how much they have—and as a result, how much they have to lose.
As a native of Charleston, SC, I grew up in a city far more like Huntsville today than the place I call home. Continue reading Huntsville, for The Love of Everything Holy, Stop Building before It’s Too Late
By Wayne Rogers
Say “Birmingham BBQ” and the names come rolling out like smoke from a pit: Full Moon. Jim ‘n Nick’s. Bob Sykes. Carlile’s. Golden Rule. Dreamland. SAW’s in all its glorious forms — Juke Joint, Soul Kitchen, and beyond.
Birmingham barbecue means hickory-smoked pork, low and slow, where the smoke does the talking and the sauce just listens. Continue reading The Birmingham BBQ Restaurant That Changed America
By Hunter Williams
Shanghai. Montpellier. Budapest. Hiroshima. Birmingham.
Read that list again. That’s not a typo — that’s the 2026 stop list for the FISE World Series, one of the largest action sports festivals on Earth, and this August, our city joins it. Birmingham is the only U.S. stop on the entire tour. Continue reading Birmingham Days Away from One of World’s Biggest Action Sports Festivals
By Randy Hutcheson
Every day, Birmingham residents generate enormous amounts of monetizable digital exhaust — streaming movies, using GPS, storing files in the cloud, scrolling social media, shopping online, and increasingly asking AI to do tasks for us.
That data has real monetary value. Continue reading Birmingham: The New Plantation Owners Don’t Grow Cotton –They Harvest Data
By Eric Thomas
What if you could land at Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport, step outside, and hop on a tram that carried you straight into the heart of the city — through Uptown, the Civil Rights District, the Parkside, UAB, Five Points, Lakeview, and back again? Continue reading The Magic City Loop: Birmingham’s Ride into the Future
By Don Erwin
Many fine articles have been published about George Barber’s life and accomplishments.
I would like to add a personal perspective. Continue reading The George Barber I Knew: The Visionary Who Brought the World to Birmingham
By Allison Black Cornelius
A foreign-owned tech company wants to build a massive 79-acre AI Mega Factory in Oxmoor Valley that consumes as much electricity as 200,000 homes and requires enormous water resources in a county that has suffered drought conditions in 17 of the last 20 years.
They want to put it right in the middle of quiet family neighborhoods, houses of worship, parks, small businesses, nonprofits, schools, and a golf course, where it will generate industrial-scale noise, heat, light, and traffic around the clock. To power it, they would erect 125-foot transmission towers carrying 230,000-volt power lines through residential streets. Continue reading A Foreign Company Wants a 79-Acre AI Factory in Your Neighborhood. Speak Up June 9th
By Doug Martinson
Editor’s note: This column appeared recently in the Huntsville Real-Time News . I thought people in Birmingham might be interested in what leaders in Huntsville are saying about their city and ours.
I recently went to a wedding in Greenville, SC, which is a very well planned and beautiful city and one that Huntsville leaders went to years ago to get ideas of how to make Huntsville a better place. Continue reading Alabama Cities Should Follow the Lead of This South Carolina City