A different way of thinking about living Intown....

Recently a Fort Wayne, IN. resident seriously considering a move to Birmingham had this to ask:
(paraphrasing)

Hey, UrbUps, help me out, man. What can I do in Birmingham if I want to live in an In Town neighborhood, spend less thant $200,000 and I have a daughter who in is a pre-IB program that I want to send to a good school?

Below is what I had to say. What do you think, dear reader?

Some neighborhood options for pre 1960 intown homes in the city of Birmingham:

Glen Iris

Southside

Crestline

Norwood (my neighborhood)

College Hills

Bush Blvd area



The skinny: living intown in Birmingham you will be in a much more economically and racially mixed area than in any of the suburbs. There are significant challenges and opportunituies that come along with that. I have not been to Ft. Wayne, but I imagine a similar pattern exists there as here. Glen Iris and southside, crestline are more consistantly middle-class and have significant pockets of yuppie-dom living in them. You see lots of restored housing there, lots of Saabs, Volvos, BMWs and Prius's in the driveways.

My neigborhood is one with tons of old mansions, some of which are beginning to be well-restored by a small group of professionals, idealists and romantics moving in. One of my neigbors a few blocks over spent $45,000 for the house they are restoring and will have put about $80,000 more into it by the time they occupy in a month or two. They will have an absolutely stunning house at the end of it however. With the aquality it'd be $500,000 in Homewood, easily! I have another neigbor who spent $160,000 for a retoration that was done for them, but the house has every high end amenity you can imagine in it. Despite the reputation, crime is relatively low in Norwood. I personally haven't had any problems in 4 years and none of my neighbors have once they have actually moved into their house (houses that are being worked on and are empty for months on end are a different story, however). To turn a phrase made popular by Rick James: "Copper pipe is a hellava metal!" Dave Chapelle Show fans will get that reference. :D



Bravo35233 gave a great breakdown on the schools. He did not mention Alabama School of Fine Arts, which is a highly ranked school that has a test based entry requirement. He also did not mention Ramsay HS, which is part of Bham City Schools. Their students do well, generally come from middle class backgrounds, have parents that are very involved in the school activities and academics, score well above the state averages on the standardized tests. A high percentage of its graduates go to college (I'm working on getting the actual percentage). It's part of Bham City Schools and is mostly black so, unfortunately, it gets lumped all together with the general "do not consider sending your child here" list that most suburbanites subscribe to here.

What do you guys think?