All Men Are Created Equal

That phrase is contained in the first sentence of the Declaration of Independence and is generally accepted as being true. The same is not true for all cities. Some cities seem to have been created to be great, others to be piss-ant.

When I first moved to the Birmingham area, old timers used to tell me the story of the search for a regional airport in the 50's. According to them, after the war, the major airlines recognized the need for a regional hub airport in the southeastern United States. At that time, Birmingham and Atlanta were still both reasonably small, backwater towns. Initially, Birmingham had an edge in the competition since it was more centrally located. Recognizing that they had an advantage, the Birmingham powers that be started figuring out how to raise taxes and get the maximum short-term profit out of the deal. Atlanta leaders on the other hand started coming up with concessions and inducements to get the airport located there. It worked, Atlanta got the airport and the rest is history.

Now I don't know whether or not the story is completely true, but just as in Aseop's fables, it illustrates a valid point. Some towns are run by small minded, petty people, others are led by people who can look to the future.
Take for instance, Pelham and Alabaster. I have been in the Pelham / Alabaster area for the better part of 30 years. When I moved out here, both places were piss-ant little towns, they still are, but that is slowly changing. Alabaster has been successful in getting some much-needed highway changes and traffic moves around in town much better than it did in years past. Pelham is still working on getting highway changes but even when they do it seems that the traffic patterns are just different, not better. Alabaster has been successful in getting a major new shopping center that continues to expand. Pelham has several denuded areas that have been completely stripped of topsoil and vegetation in apparent preparation for commercial development. All that prep work took place a long while before the Alabaster development, but so far all Pelham has is a lot of vacant weed patches where trees and hills once stood. Maybe its just bad luck, maybe it is bad karma or maybe it is because the mayor and town officials in Pelham spend all their time worrying about passing ordinances like the one they approved last night to regulate the number of adults that can live in a house. Hopefully, now that they have that important piece of regulation taken care of, they will have time to talk someone into building something on all these denuded vacant weed patches.