This is an opinion column
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Today’s guest columnist is Don Erwin.
It seems like only yesterday the City of Birmingham lost its title as “Alabama’s largest city.” Now, according to the latest census numbers, Huntsville has 34,000 more people than Birmingham.
It seems like only yesterday that Hoover, the Metro’s second-largest city, was a dynamic, growing suburb, but during 2020-2024, Hoover gained less than 4/10ths of one percent in population.
How time flies when you’re falling behind.
The Birmingham Metro accounts for 23% of Alabama’s population, but in 2024, the Birmingham Metro accounted for just 17.75% of the state’s announced jobs from new companies. Four of the seven Birmingham Metro counties announced no new companies.
This is not a one-year anomaly. For the years 2012-2024, the Birmingham Metro accounted for just 15.36% of the state’s announced jobs from new companies.
Poor job growth leads to poor population growth.
During 2020-2024, the Auburn-Opelika Metro with 206,000 people added 11,678 people. The Birmingham Metro, with almost 1.2 million people, added just 10,767 people. The Huntsville Metro, with less than half the Birmingham Metro population, added 47,561 people.
Birmingham’s still the largest Metro in Alabama, but that’s living on past glory and of doubtful importance. Would you rather live in Switzerland or India?
There are many downsides to poor job growth. For Birmingham Metro citizens looking for good jobs, it means not as many are available. For people looking for a place to build a career and raise a family, it means they look for places with more opportunity.
Here’s the crazy thing: We’re doing good things to create and attract new jobs. Our business startup efforts have produced results. Jefferson County and the other metro counties are developing industrial parks. We’re just not doing enough.
The Birmingham Business Alliance (BBA) is the regional organization responsible for Birmingham’s economic development efforts. I’ve reviewed BBA’s business plan. It’s a good one. I’ve talked with its people. They’re competent and enthusiastic. They’re ready to fully execute if they have proper funding.
Last fall, I wrote that BBA has about one-fourth the staffing of the Birmingham Regional Planning Commission and one-half the staffing of the Birmingham Convention & Visitors Bureau. We fully fund planning and tourism attraction efforts, why not efforts to attract new jobs and companies?
Birmingham has some unique (for Alabama) job-attraction challenges. Jefferson and Shelby counties have office buildings with two million square feet of vacant space. If a photo of downtown Birmingham were photoshopped to reflect the actual occupancy of the tall towers, downtown Birmingham would look a lot “flatter.”
Building owners will tell you their new tenants almost always come from within the Metro, rather than elsewhere. Instead of growing the pie, we’re just shuffling the pie slices.
We can’t depend on others to bring us jobs. The Alabama Department of Commerce is mostly focused on putting traditional manufacturing companies into traditional industrial parks. They’re not going to help find prospects for our vacant office space. A special team to identify and recruit office-space-using companies must be created. That takes funding.
BBA estimates it would take an additional $1.5-$2.0 million/year to fully fund their hunt for new jobs and companies.
Currently, BBA is funded about 80% by area companies and 20% by area governments. In many metros, the split is more typically 50-50. Metro Birmingham governments should step up.
I recently talked with a city official who wondered if their city could afford to contribute more to BBA’s economic development efforts.
My answer: If you focus on generating good jobs for your citizens, there will be plenty of money for your city’s needs, because people with good jobs and new companies generate plenty of sales and property and other tax revenue.
Jim Clifton, the Chairman of the Gallup organization, has written: “Mayors and leaders of every city, town, and village…must realize that every decision they make should consider the impact, first and foremost, on good jobs… Everybody in charge of anything needs to focus on job creation. If they divert their attention, vote them out… The jobs war is what should get city leaders up in the morning, what they should work on all day, and what should keep them from getting to sleep at night.”
There are lots of things easier to do than recruiting new companies and jobs. But when the Titanic is sinking, you don’t paint the deck chairs.
Let’s adequately fund economic development. We can either take action, or we can wait for the 2025 Commerce Department report and see us falling further behind.
Time is passing us by. It’s time for leaders to be leaders.
Don Erwin was an economic developer for twelve years. He is the author of Buffalo Hunting in Alabama, a novel about the competition among cities and states to attract economic development projects. He lives in the Birmingham metro.
David Sher is the founder and publisher of ComebackTown. He’s past Chairman of the Birmingham Regional Chamber of Commerce (BBA), Operation New Birmingham (REV Birmingham), and the City Action Partnership (CAP).
Invite David to speak for free to your group about how we can have a more prosperous metro Birmingham. [email protected]