Serious review-- 20 years in Huntsville.
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10/25/2020
OK, I have read all the reviews for this place, I think. Most have a grain of truth. I have lived here for 20 years. I grew up in Italy, France, and Germany. I have lived before in Virginia, Seattle, and Orlando, FL. I've traveled all over the US, and have family in at least 5 other states. So I have some basis for a fairly rounded review.
I'm going to go through the CONS first, but do stick around for the PROS, because I am of the opinion that this is a good place to live. The BIGGEST CON by far is: pollen. Honestly, I am not sure if its pollen that causes the sinus infections people are always getting here, but its some kind of air thing. From Nashville TN to the north down to Birmingham AL in the south the pollen, or other pollutant, is a problem for everyone here from time to time, usually in the Spring and the Fall, but can also last all summer long to an extent. Even one of my dogs get so allergic in the spring, we have to give her benedryl every night and every morning to get her through it. MY RECOMMENDATION: get a medical grade electric air filter (like from allergybuyers dot com) and run it in the main room of your house or your bedroom in spring and fall. It will be worth every penny, ESPECIALLY if you have asthma. If you have a child that has bad asthma, I have to say that moving anywhere in the south where its humid and hot is a very bad idea, except Florida.
Another con: Sprawl. This place is growing so fast, that there are lots of cheaply made houses going up in old cotton fields. Watch out for these builder grade houses if you are moving here. Very cheap, but they will fall apart. If you live in a suburb outside the main city, you will have a long way to drive to get anywhere, and unfortunately it just looks like commercial sprawl. I'm not a fan at all of billboards and store signs for miles on end. I used to live in the Harvest area, but I moved into the town center.
Religion is a big thing here. Not sure this is necessarily a CON, but its just a thing. Really, these churches are just big civic centers, social clubs. But there are some folks that get pretty religious. In the downtown area there are more "open minded" churches (?) like the Episcopals, Unitarians, Greek Orthodox, and one Mystery School type church which I absolutely love, full of wonderful highly educated seekers of ancient ideas (sanskrit, astrology, theosophy type stuff). The church buildings themselves downtown are lovely, and fun to visit. Plus pipe organ concerts, choral events, it really is nice. But the mega churches in some suburban communities here ... i dunno. I guess its good for a sense of belonging in many communities. They just seem pretty ---- eh, limiting? Maybe I'm biased. Lots of conservative folks here, but there is a very strong liberal undercurrent, and high tolerance of differences.
PROS:
If you live downtown (which is full of quaint old mill houses and victorian mansions) this town is really pretty. And from there it takes like 5 -15 minutes to drive to nearly any activity, since all the entertainment is downtown. There's a lot of entertainment, too, and plenty of culture to be had. That is a definite plus for Huntsville. There's always something fun for the family to do. And the "city" of Huntsville is more like a bustling town, its really just perfect right now.
Many people here are very highly educated. Having worked at NASA and other space agencies here, I have gotten to know scientists who have discovered amazing things. I've chatted with astronauts, and discussed global warming with actual weather researchers. I'm great friends with an internationally known optical physicist, and you will be too if you move and work here in the space industry, because everyone is known for something. This is where all those folks come to work. So that's a big plus. Interesting people. (That said, many of these very interesting people can burn out, and then they move to Utah to become ski instructors and live like hippies).
Another PRO: not so much snow. And I haven't mentioned yet that the nicest NICEST place to live in Huntsville is on Monte Sano mountain downtown. Its gorgeous there in the winter, with a lovely cool fog every day instead of snow, and about three days of snow per year on the mountain, just enough to enjoy and be done with it. Plus the mountain is 8 degrees cooler in the summer, and that's a good thing. The houses on the mountain tend to be more expensive, but not always if you keep looking. There are a few last home lots for sale, but some of them probably won't perk, so the older houses up here just have to be updated and rebuilt.
Its easy to start a business here. Because land is cheap to build your restaurant (or whatever) and the customers are ready to try new things. Houses are cheap here, land is cheap, you can get trapped here from the sheer affordability of stuff. Honestly I am not sure how people in other cities afford live with houses costing double what we have here. 10 years ago I bought a farm house plus 20 acres and a pond, with two barns for $95k. Sold it for $170k. It was fun living way out in the country for those years, but I would not do it again. Just too far from civilization, and there are lots of much less educated weirdos out there who don't like newbs in their back country.
SO in conclusion: This place ain't so bad. If you move here, move downtown, or onto Monte Sano if you can (especially if you are liberal) (if you're conservative you may be more happy in the 'burbs, but either way folks are pretty nice). Find a neighborhood with sidewalks and trees, seriously, put it on your checklist. You will need both in the summer. Earnings can be high here, and real estate low. Entertainment is constant. I haven't been hiking but I'm gonna check it out. There's also a big mountain biking community here. Never tried it. There are mosqitoes for sure in the summer. But the city sprays for them, and BY THE WAY, never spray your yard for them here (maybe anywhere?) because it literally kills every bug and bird in your yard, I tried it, it was horrible. Even the frogs left. We just use bug spray on the kids now. It took two years for our birds and frogs to return.
N | Huntsville, AL