Low cost of living
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3/26/2024
My wife and I moved from Atlanta, GA area in 2016 when I retired. We have now lived in Huntsville for 4 years and now in Madison for almost 4 years. We were thinking seriously of moving back to Georgia (feels like home after 26 years there) but we discovered that the Huntsville/Madison area was in the beginnings of a giant growth spurt! Why? Toyota, Facebook, Amazon, FBI, and numerous aerospace companies (ex. Blue Origin) are moving (some have already moved) and that has caused the area to be leading the country in growth!!! Huntsville was chosen to be the new home for Space Command Headquarters but politics has gotten in the way and it may stay in Colorado Springs.
Madison is a typical southern city so it is very friendly on average. The city and Madison County in general is primarily conservative. I enjoy it here but my daughter who lives in San Francisco would not like it and will never move back to the south. Whatever floats your boat when it comes to politics and way of life.
Reasons to stay here are the low cost of living, relatively low crime, great schools (Scale of 1-10, schools are ranked 10), plenty of restaurants and more coming in. Restaurants need to improve their quality (especially since Covid-19) in my opinion, but you won't go hungry. Median income is about $105,000! About 59% of adults have a bachelor degree or higher.
If you love the outdoors (I'm a birder) there are several greenways for exercising (whether looking for birds or not), with more being built (plenty in Huntsville), and near Madison is the Tennessee River and Wheeler NWR which are easy drives. The Guntersville and surrounding area is about an hour away which has a beautiful lake, great fishing, and the most eagles in the state of Alabama. An easy to see eagle's nest is right beside Sunset Drive which runs along the lake on the edge of town. If you are a birder like me, check out the North Alabama Birding Trail. It has about 50 sites on it from Alabama's east border to the west border and from the north border to just over the Tennessee River on the south side.
People new to the city and metro area are coming from all over the country and are raising the cost of living (COL) and the growth is stressing the streets and highways. Will Madison have a low cost of living and excellent quality of living as it does now, in 10 years and beyond? The COL will be higher but likely will still be relatively low compared to other cities it's size. We moved from the Atlanta suburb of Grayson, GA and our COL reduced by roughly 50% and we can't afford to move back there if we wanted to. Property taxes are high in Georgia and very low in Alabama and our income dropped by retiring. The cheaper COL was the main reason for moving to the Huntsville/Madison area after I retired, and my wife retired 1.5 years later. By the way, retirement is wonderful as long as you save, plan, make the right choices, your health is good or health insurance is good.
Traffic is a sore point as there has not been enough planning of roads. Having a loop around the metro area seems to have never been seriously considered as there is no sign of one and to my knowledge, no future plans for one. Also, if you want to drive to south Huntsville, you must go to downtown Huntsville first, then go south on Memorial Drive. Why? Because of the Redstone Arsenal/NASA. Memorial Parkway was renovated over several years but they didn't 3 lane it each way and didn't increase the speed limit. They did 2 lane it but the DOT should have widened it to 3 lanes each way while they had the chance. US-72 is the main road through Madison and as of 2025, will be widened which will be a headache for travel if you drive the area like I do.
Only time will tell whether Madison retains it's low COL and southern charm.
Tim | Madison, AL