{"id":539,"date":"2007-06-05T19:21:57","date_gmt":"2007-06-06T02:21:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/mybirmingham\/2007\/06\/05\/good-news-alabama\/"},"modified":"2007-06-05T19:21:57","modified_gmt":"2007-06-06T02:21:57","slug":"good-news-alabama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/dearbham\/2007\/06\/05\/good-news-alabama\/","title":{"rendered":"Good News, Alabama"},"content":{"rendered":"

NOTE: This commentary was originally submitted by Jay Taylor on May 11 and posted in the main section of The Terminal that afternoon<\/a>. Please visit the original post to view comments already made.
<\/em><\/p>\n

Good news everybody. ThyssenKrupp<\/a> chose Alabama. Of course, you don\u2019t need me to tell you that, there\u2019s a [post] about it prominently displayed on al.com<\/a> today (May 11).<\/p>\n

But, there\u2019s another interesting angle to this story: Louisiana\u2019s reaction to being runner-up.<\/p>\n

Check out nola.com<\/a>. (The template for this site will look awfully familiar. Everything Alabama and Everything New Orleans are two of 10 sites across the country affiliated with a company called Advance Internet).<\/p>\n

Anyway, at nola.com you\u2019ll find the blog post about the Thyssenkrupp decision<\/a> is getting the same billing on their home page as ours. The difference is the mood over there is somber. The interesting angle to this story is the low self-esteem expressed in all the user comments.<\/p>\n

Around these parts, you don\u2019t have to look hard to find accusations of political corruption, bickering, ineptness, incompetence, crime, poor education, untrained workforce, pollution, racism, unfair taxes, lack of vision\u2026 need I continue? Some of these are true and some are perceived. But, while these are serious issues that must be addressed, they are not exclusive to our city and state. At nola.com you\u2019ll read about how residents there cite these same problems as reasons why Baton Rouge lost out. In other words, Louisiana would like to be more like Alabama so they can be more attractive to businesses.<\/p>\n

Interestingly enough, out of 67 potential sites in 20 states, Louisiana was second \u2013 so they were attractive to business, just not the right fit for Thyssenkrupp. However instead of focusing on the positive effort that put them ahead of 18 other states, they\u2019re focusing on the negative.<\/p>\n

And Louisiana isn\u2019t the only state that suffers from some of the same self-doubt and inability to get things done that we sometimes feel. Compare Birmingham to Memphis, Tennessee, for example. In Birmingham, most people are on the same page about the Railroad Reservation Park. We don\u2019t have water \u2013 which a lot of cities take advantage of to enhance their downtown revitalization \u2013 but we\u2019re planning to use the area around the railroad tracks as a substitution. Smart thinking.<\/p>\n

In Memphis, they have water. Putting some businesses and residences on the Mississippi River seems like a no-brainer, doesn\u2019t it? That\u2019d be a great place for the ole "Live, Work, Play" formula that cities across American are trying to create.\n<\/p>\n

But in Memphis, they can\u2019t get it done. There\u2019s a movement afoot to develop<\/a> that area.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s also a movement to stop it<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Anyway, my point is that we have a lot of problems in our city and state, and we\u2019ve got a lot of work ahead of us. But, maybe the first thing we should do is hold our collective head up high. It\u2019s Friday, our state economy just got a huge shot in the arm, and another state is bemoaning the fact that they aren\u2019t more like Alabama.<\/p>\n

\nIt\u2019s going to be a good weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"<\/a>

NOTE: This commentary was originally submitted by Jay Taylor on May 11 and posted in the main section of The Terminal that afternoon. Please visit the original post to view comments already made. Good news everybody. ThyssenKrupp chose Alabama. Of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-development"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p50I8-8H","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/dearbham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/dearbham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/dearbham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/dearbham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/dearbham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/dearbham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/dearbham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/dearbham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/dearbham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}