This certainly doesn't look like Alabama!

Huntsville, Alabama. The rocket city. The space rocket capital of the nation. It’s been called the best most affordable place to live in the nation. You may not know it, but Huntsville is the biggest city in Alabama now. The poverty and crime in Montgomery and Birmingham have driven a lot of people away from those places. And many are coming here. When it comes to growth and innovation, Huntsville is by far the best, most exciting place to live in this whole state. It’s a truly progressive, metropolitan area in the heart of the deep south.

So, I had to go there and see it. The day I picked to drive through Huntsville was a really nice one. It was late in the day in late November of 2021. We’re going to drive around the downtown Huntsville area and talk about this city for a bit.

Now you might not think of Alabama as being very modern and innovative, but there’s some of that here. Right now, you could consider Huntsville a mid-sized city - there’s just over 200,000 people here. This place has a small town feel, but it’s growing fast. Look at that population growth!

A long time ago, Huntsville relied on cotton and the railroad for a lot of its industry. That’s how it was in a lot of the south in the 1800s. At one point, this was even the state capital. But then in the 1940s, during world war 2, the army established some chemical munitions plants, and that brought in a lot of growth. But it wasn’t until 1950 that a missile center opened up and that jump started a population explosion here. The US government then began a program called the Ordnance Guided Missile Center and developed the Redstone Rocket.

That set the stage for the United States Space program to begin here in Huntsville. Today, NASA has a big facility here, where it builds rockets and does a lot of research. A lot of the technology invented here helps with defense as well as space exploration and space research. Rockets were developed here which put the first satellites into orbit and sent men to the moon. Propulsion for the space shuttle was developed here, and modules for the international space station were designed and built in Huntsville as well.

However, in the 1970s, the government ended the Apollo space program, and Huntsville’s economy was nearly crippled. But a resurgence in space exploration and defense systems has been a big boost to the Huntsville economy over the last 30 years. Since the year 2000, Huntsville has become home to the second largest technology and research park in the nation.

Biotech is also a big deal here. Only North Carolina’s research triangle park is larger. They do a lot of genetics work here, and study infectious diseases and cancer research. If you’re an engineer, you’d fit right in. Outside of the Silicon Valley, there’s very few places with more high tech talent. They call it the Silicon Holler.

Boeing, the US Army, the FBI, Google and Facebook have a presence here.

There’s also a Toyota manufacturing center and Mazda manufacturing center here as well. So, safe to say, there’s a ton of jobs and opportunities.

In terms of things to do, there are festivals here all year long and a lot of artsy things. There’s also a big brewery scene here.

It’s fairly conservative here, despite the fact there are people here from all over the world. And because it’s so transitory, the culture here is really diverse, especially for Alabama. To be honest, it doesn’t even feel like Alabama.

They have an awesome park in the heart of downtown called Big Spring Park. Here, they have events and festivals all the time. Like, when I was here, there was an annual event they call the Tinsel Trail.

And the cost of living is SUPER low here. This has been called the best most affordable place you can live in the nation. The average home price is about $250,000 right now, and that’s a STEAL.

Of course no place is perfect. It’s super hot and humid and there’s mosquitos and tornadoes. That’s not fun. While downtown is really safe and fun, there’s bad neighborhoods all over the place It’s not really that violent, but property crimes are up there. The poverty rate for a lot of the population is also higher than the US average.

But Huntsville, Alabama. One of the best places you can live in the south, people. And definitely the best place you can live in the state of Alabama.

#alabama #moving

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