Oh, six: Growing, growing, gone
By Wade KwonAs slow as Birmingham progresses, the city saw its share of growing pains — and regular pains — in 2006.
It’s easy to spot as you tool around the area. Look around and you’ll see construction barriers everywhere, mostly for condos springing up throughout Jefferson County.
Look a little closer and you’ll see chalk outlines, as the murderous rampage of ’05 continued unchecked throughout the year.
The condominium craze has transformed the landscape almost overnight. Many old buildings are seeing new life as trendy lofts, while others are “disappeared” to make way for these complexes. Southside, downtown, Lakeview, Homewood, Mountain Brook, 280 — they’re freakin’ everywhere.
Affordable? Yes, if you happen to be shopping for 700 square feet at $200,000 and up. At least your commute time will be minimal.
Other cities in the region have or had the condo explosion, followed by the inevitable bubble burst, leaving speculative investors holding the renovated, overpriced bag. Birmingham’s condo market will likely meet a similar fate.
Along with the condo explosion, new housing construction continues, primarily in Shelby County. McMansions dot the formerly quiet highways, offering plenty of land and room, if in a generic blah box, far, far away from where most work during the week.
The malls and restaurants and Wal-Marts have followed, creating a whole ’nother metro area that keeps to itself. Downtown Birmingham is merely a destination, like Atlanta or the outlet center.
Speaking of Wal-Mart, the former Eastwood Mall has been eradicated for another Super Center. The incoming Wal-Mart could jumpstart the emaciated Eastwood/Festival/Century Plaza area. But what happens in 10 years when the world’s biggest retailer leaves behind another hulking shell for Birmingham to clean up?
The city has in essence given up, except for prayer. It has no master plan for development, either attracting it or regulating it. Businesses who flee downtown do so with nary a peep from City Hall. Businesses who actually want to locate in the city do so by overcoming obstacles from the municipal government, rather than with its help and encouragement.
Crime runs rampant, and Mayor Kincaid and police chief Annetta Nunn are impotent. Families have moved away to safer parts of the area, for better schools, for safer streets, for more effective leadership.
Indeed, city leadership has attracted attention this year, all of it negative. Even Mayor Arrington, no stranger to critics and bad press, got things done. But this mayor and city council — we’ll throw in the previous county commission for good measure — seem destined to let Birmingham slide farther into oblivion.
Gov. Riley and respected business leaders said, tardily, that Birmingham lacks true leadership. No one is taking charge on solving problems of law enforcement, mass transit, development, education and the other humdrum things that keep a city alive.
We said early in the year that cooperation would be the defining factor. Looks like everyone is cooperating to point out what a lousy job Birmingham is doing.
In spite of the city, we’re likely to see green spaces win out over development, preserving one of the area’s best resources. Young professionals have taken baby steps toward setting the agenda, if not controlling the destiny, of this fair metropolis.
Birmingham continues to grow, in construction, in deadliness, in a vacuum of leadership. These factors, by the way, have little if anything to do with the city’s blighted civil rights past.
That, too, is a measure of its growth.
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Special report: The ’06 … a last look
