Reviews & Comments
Birmingham, AL
Stay away if you are not white and from the area -
12/5/2018Birmingham might be a good place for people who have lived there for generations.
However, if you are a professional from other regions of the country or god forbid from other countries, try to stay away from it.
My spouse and I are both professors and we lived in BHM for 7 years. We almost had to socialize exclusively with transplants like us the entire time. If you are not originally from the Alabama area, the locals won't hang out with you, their kids won't have playdates with your kids, you are discriminated at work, even universities, which are probably the most liberal place in the city. My former next door neighbor told me that she moved to Birmingham from Atlanta because Atlanta is too diverse. I find that to be the kind of mindset of Birmingham.
The city is extremely segregated. Neighborhoods are either almost completely white or complete Black, with later having bad public schools. We bought a house in a city with good schools, but we are not white. We left after seven years, before our first kid is about to start elementary school. She would be the only non-white kid in that year in the school we are zoned to.
We realized all our colleges and friends, Americans and foreign, as long as they are not from the area, have left at approximately the same time.