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<\/a>By Prioleau Alexander<\/em><\/p>\n Editor\u2019s note: This column appeared recently in the\u00a0Huntsville Real-Time News<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 coordinated by Doug Martinson. I think it\u2019s important for people in Birmingham to know what \u2018s going on with our Alabama neighbor to the North.<\/em><\/p>\n Residents of Huntsville, Alabama don\u2019t understand how much they have\u2014and as a result, how much they have to lose.<\/p>\n As a native of Charleston, SC, I grew up in a city far more like Huntsville today than the place I call home.<\/p>\n While travel magazines conduct polls every year to declare Charleston the number one tourist destination in the world (yes, I said \u201cworld\u201d), one should note the importance of the world \u201cvisitors.\u201d To natives, the city is an unrecognizable disgrace.<\/p>\n Charleston was \u201cdiscovered\u201d in 1989 after Hurricane Hugo crushed it\u2026 oddly enough, because insurance money came into the economy. Those magnificent homes in the historic district weren\u2019t trophy homes then\u2014they were much closer to an inherited family curse. No one had the money to maintain them, and the city was the world\u2019s greatest example of blue-blood locals \u201ctoo poor to paint, but too proud to white-wash.\u201d<\/p>\n Once the homes were spruced up a bit, they became desirable to out-of-town money. You could sell a small condo in Manhattan, and buy a trophy home in Charleston. All the locals said, \u201cYou\u2019ll pay me how much? Sold!\u201d<\/p>\n No one said ever thought, \u201cWhere will I go now?\u201d<\/p>\n Today? The historic district is a place of wall-to-wall tourists, restaurants, bars, fudge shops, t-shirt stores, parking meters, traffic jams, and recently arrived multi-millionaires from the Northeast\u2014who move to Charleston with far more than money. They bring their politics and big-city attitudes, with \u201cwonderful\u201d ideas of how to improve the lives of us uneducated Southerners. You know\u2014like they did it in New York.<\/p>\n Outside Charleston, you\u2019ll find a region that defines urban sprawl hell. Strip malls run for 10 miles in every direction. Hundreds of thousands of people fill soulless developments, where they\u2019ve never met their neighbor. The areas most people consider to be \u201cCharleston\u201d\u2014the Peninsula, West Ashely, James Island, Mt. Pleasant and the islands offer a total of zero livable homes under $700,000.<\/p>\n Not downtown. Not swanky. A two-bedroom\/two bath home ranch. To put it in Huntsville perspective, image standing downtown\u2026 and envision the cheapest home within 20 minutes selling for $700,000.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t cry for me\u2014us native Charlestonians have no one to blame but ourselves. We opened Pandora\u2019s Box of quick money, and got what we deserve.<\/p>\n On the other hand, there\u2019s Huntsville.<\/p>\n Huntsville today is in what I would consider the sweetest of sweet spots. Big enough. Prosperous enough. Beautiful sporting facilities. A proper downtown with a vibrant and fun culture. Gorgeous parks. Traffic flows. People speak on the street. Untold numbers of real neighborhoods alive with friendships. Access to water and raw nature. Sidewalk cafes. Breweries. The Rocket City Trash Pandas. Von Braun Civic Center. Museums. A reasonably sized airport. A city that takes pride in itself.<\/p>\n Huntsville should have a raucous celebration every year where residents gather to simply thank the current and pasts Mayors and City Council members for the miracles they\u2019ve worked. You simply don\u2019t understand what they\u2019ve done here\u2014and hopefully never will.<\/p>\n What now for Huntsville?<\/p>\n Stop. For the love of everything holy, stop before it\u2019s too late.<\/p>\n You need to be rabid in your protection of what you have. Be obnoxiously disruptive when the developers arrive with their bulldozers. Fund an organization to file endless lawsuits. Force relocating business behemoths to build least 20 miles away. Become curmudgeons who hate change.<\/p>\n Consider this: The Charleston region is now home to Volvo, Mercedes, and Boeing. What? Who thought, \u201cYou know what Charleston needs? To be the new Detroit.\u201d<\/p>\n The same tired lies were used by Charleston politicians every step of the way, chief among them being, \u201cThink about how many good well-paying jobs it will create!\u201d<\/p>\n Here\u2019s how many existing residents got those jobs: Zero.<\/p>\n Do you think Boeing thought, \u201cWe need a guy with a PhD in aeronautical wing design. But he has to be from Charleston!\u201d<\/p>\n Of course not. All of those jobs were filled by experienced professionals who moved here. The two-decade building boom has been worked by craftsmen who moved here. The hospitality industry is staffed by people who moved here. Sure, the booming growth has been good for the tax base, and allowed politicians to build monuments to themselves, but the growth itself has been a massive net negative. Nothing gets better for residents when economic grow equals nothing more than population growth.<\/p>\n What does a conservative guy like me have to say about land owners property rights? That\u2019s a tough one\u2014but if there\u2019s a political body that can get ahead of it legally, it\u2019s yours. Zone the living hell out of everything. Prohibit new construction above three stories within 10 miles of downtown. Get your lawyers to crafted scaled impact fees, allowing you to make your city financially prohibitive to the industries you don\u2019t want.<\/p>\n The only thing standing between Huntsville residents and this coming quality of life apocalypse is your mayor and city council\u2014believe me, concerned citizens can\u2019t stop venture-capitalist-funded developers who want to pave the Big Spring International Park and put up an Obama Presidential Library knock off. The only people who can do that is your elected representatives, who need to start their zoning blitzkrieg today.<\/p>\n Y\u2019all have an amazing, beautiful city. I\u2019d say priceless, but priceless is a word only you can define for yourself.<\/p>\n If Charleston wasn\u2019t the home of my entire family, and friends I\u2019ve known since kindergarten, I\u2019d move here. Yesterday.<\/p>\n But, dear reader, what will you do when someone knocks on your door and offers you double what your home is currently appraised for? Triple?<\/p>\n I can tell you what we said in Charleston. I can tell you what every single one of us wishes we\u2019d said.<\/p>\n Because in the end, the question shouldn\u2019t be phrased as, \u201cShould I sell?\u201d<\/p>\n The question should always be, \u201cIf I sell, where will I go?\u201d<\/p>\n Prioleau Alexander is a non-fiction humorist and the author of four books. More of his writings can be explored at TypingForBeerMoney.com<\/strong><\/span><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n David Sher is the founder and publisher of\u00a0ComebackTown<\/strong><\/a><\/span>.\u00a0\u00a0He\u2019s past Chairman of the Birmingham Regional Chamber of Commerce (BBA), Operation New Birmingham (REV Birmingham), and the City Action Partnership (CAP).<\/em><\/p>\n Care about Birmingham,\u00a0sign up for ComebackTown newsletter<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Invite David to speak for free to your group about how we can have a more prosperous metro Birmingham. dsher@comebacktown.com\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n (Visited 1,895 times, 1 visits today)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n