A Nice 3 of 5 Star City
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10/28/2021
Overall, I rate Montgomery as a decent city--not great but not awful. Before moving here in 1984, I lived in Houston, Texas, Little Rock, Arkansas, Tallahassee, Florida, and Biloxi, Mississippi. I have close relatives in Ohio and in Florida. Additionally, I've visited dozens of cities throughout the nation and especially in the South. I believe I have traveled to and lived in enough cities to judge Montgomery objectively.
The better aspects of the city are varied and any review of it must begin with history. Montgomery is the "Cradle of the Confederacy" as it was the Confederacy's first capital and the telegram sent to Genl. Beauregard, to commence the bombardment of Ft. Sumter, was sent from Montgomery. Jefferson Davis's first residence as Confederate President is preserved here and is known as the "White House of the Confederacy." But just as historically important and likely even more important as the Confederacy is the Civil Rights Movement that has several important places of interest in the city of Montgomery. Martin Luther King's church is here, the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church. He pastored at this church from 1954 to 1960 and from there directed the famous Montgomery Bus Boycott as a reaction to the arrest of Rosa Parks. Aside from the Civil War and Civil Rights Montgomery is known for the city has a rejuvenated downtown with dozens of restaurants, many bars, and a modern stadium for its minor baseball them, the Montgomery Biscuits. In sum, it has come a long ways from the sleepy Southern city it was fifty years ago. As the birthplace of the Confederacy and of Civil Rights, Montgomery is a unique city.
Perhaps the best aspect of the city is its low cost of living. Compared to many other cities, housing is relatively cheap and property taxes are low. Gasoline and food prices are reasonable. The state income tax is 5%. For military retirees, Maxwell Air Force Base is located in Montgomery and it also has a large Veteran's Hospital.
The downside of low property taxes is the fact that Montgomery's public schools are of a poor quality but this has much to do with demographics. The public schools experienced "white flight" in the 1990s and the public schools are now almost exclusively African American and Hispanic. In the State of Alabama every public school adjudged to be "failing" has a majority of minority students, i.e., they are not majority white schools. Most all white people in Montgomery send their children to private schools and likewise so do a number of black families. Although there are one or two excellent magnet public schools in the city, anyone moving to Montgomery with children of school age should be prepared to pay for private school. The only other choice is to live in one of the bedroom communities (Pike Road, Prattville, Wetumpka) and commute to Montgomery for work.
Since the adoption of BLM policing policies in 2000, Montgomery has seen its homicide rate increase dramatically. Since the curtailment of stop and frisk, the ending of frequent patrols of high crime minority neighborhoods, the cessation of "broken window" policing, and the lack of enforcement of traffic laws, Montgomery--like all of the many cities that have adopted BLM policing procedures--now has a crime problem and it witnessed its homicide rate have its greatest one year increase in the recorded history of the city going back over 100 years. However, as I write this review, if you live in an affluent neighborhood (that would be a neighborhood with housing of $300,000 or higher) your chances of being a homicide victim are quite low. Sadly, about 95% of the Montgomery homicides are poor African Americans killing one another, or "black on black" crime.
The weather is what you would expect for a city in the Deep South--hot and humid 6 months of the year with perhaps 3 cold months and the remaining 3 months being pleasant. You power bills for home A/C will be on the high side from mid April through mid October. However, aside from those months, you'll have low energy costs during the other 6 months. Also, you're only 3 to 4 hours from some beautiful white, sandy beaches in South Alabama and the Panhandle of Florida, a geographic area widely known as "The Redneck Riviera."
As with most every Southern city, the people are pleasant and friendly. You'll hear a lot of "Yes ma'am" and "Yes sir" frequently spoken and people are generally polite. They are easy going for the most part, and never as hurried or irritated as people in Northern cities often are.
All in all, were I rating Montgomery, Alabama on a 5 star rating scale, I'd rate the city as 3 out of 5.
dan | Pike Road, AL