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
By Emily Wykle
For a long time, ambitious entrepreneurs in Alabama learned the same lesson early: if you wanted to build something big, you would probably have to leave. That belief shaped more than their careers.
It shaped where companies were headquartered, where jobs landed and where economic opportunity bloomed. Continue reading The Myth That’s Been Holding Birmingham and Alabama Back — Why It’s Finally Dying
By Scott Gelber
For nearly 50 years, New York wasn’t just where I lived. It shaped how I saw the world.
I spent 25 of those years working in Manhattan. If you’ve ever worked there, you know the rhythm.
Everything moves fast. Continue reading A New Yorker and The Birmingham he Never Saw Coming
By Robert Watkins
News Flash! If you are a dog or cat and can choose your birth state, you might want to avoid Alabama — no matter how cutely you wag your tail, shake hands with your paw, or roll over on command.
Alabama has a problem that most people don’t know about. Continue reading Alabama Quietly Killing Thousands of Dogs and Cats. Here’s What We’re Doing in Birmingham to Save Them
Editor’s note: I don’t do this often. But when we lost J. Mason Davis on April 24, I knew I had to bring back one of the most remarkable pieces ever published on ComebackTown — because it deserves to be read again, and because the man who wrote it deserves to be remembered.
Read it as a tribute to a man who wasn’t afraid to tell the truth — and as a reminder that honest voices, once gone, leave a silence that’s hard to fill. Continue reading Alabama Tried to get Rid of this Birmingham Man, It Didn’t Work
By Steve Ammons
Economic competition today doesn’t happen city by city.
It happens region against region.
Companies evaluating where to invest aren’t comparing one municipality to another.
They’re comparing metropolitan areas, looking at workforce size, infrastructure, talent pipelines, quality of life, and economic momentum. In other words, they’re evaluating regions. Continue reading Why Birmingham’s Economic Future Depends on Regional Alignment
By Steve Alexander.
If you haven’t visited Five Points South lately, you’ll be amazed with what you see.
Gone is the graffiti.
Clean and Safe ambassadors patrol the district.
There are no encampments in the park.
The unhoused are being proactively connected to the
services they need.
Five Points South is re-emerging right before my eyes.
Continue reading A New Five Points South Is Emerging Right Before My Eyes
By Tony Tamburello
Birmingham has changed dramatically in my lifetime.
Downtown revitalization, mixed-use development, and reinvestment have turned stagnant areas into hubs of activity. Much of this progress comes not from flashy reinvention but from undoing past mistakes that pushed people away. Continue reading Your Parents Abandoned Birmingham. Will You?