There may be a correlation between two reports released in recent weeks looking at Birmingham, AL and our metro area’s level of fitness.
Last week The Atlantic published a piece by Richard Florida, one of their senior editors best known for his book The Rise of the Creative Class (affiliate link) and the accompanying website. It focused on the results of this year’s American College of Sports Medicine‘s American Fitness Index, an index that included Birmingham, AL.
The report points out that metro Birmingham, although ranking 47th out of 50 areas examined in this study, contains more farmers markets and more park units per capita than the other cities though most of it sits outside of the urban areas.
The folks over at the Living Streets Alliance pointed out the striking correlation between those cities with high percentages of commuting to work by bike and those cities that were among considered the most fit in the index. The results of a report referenced recently by The Birmingham News could also be looked at as a reason for our metro area’s fitness ranking – it lists the Birmingham-Hoover metro area as the 16th most dangerous for pedestrians in the country (with 136 between 2000-2009).
It’s not like metro Birmingham hasn’t started trying to address the issues including Railroad Park’s “Get Healthy on the Railroad” and the Our One Mile initiatives.
Photo: Thinking. Max Wolfe/Flickr.
Trader Joe’s? It’s going to be a while
UPDATE: 9/17/2014 – Patience has paid off as an announcement was made this morning | Trader Joe’s arrives in Birmingham in late 2015
The interviewer asked about the online battle taking place here in Alabama about where to put a Trader Joe’s. The response has sparked some debate:
Another interesting point brought up by Coulombe was how the salaries were determined for the original stores; it was based off of the median family income – a practice that is still followed by the company (which is now owned by a trust created by the owners of the Aldi grocery store chain).
If Trader Joe’s were to put a location in the state of Alabama and they followed the median family income policy, based on 2009 figures from the U.S. Census Bureau, the average employee for the chain could potentially make $39,980/year, plus benefits.
This would all be great – if Trader Joe’s had plans to move into metro Birmingham in the near future. According to a Birmingham News article written last month, it’s not in the cards (at least not for the next couple of years). That’s even with three different efforts taking place on Facebook trying to get them to consider a location in Birmingham or Hoover. Then there’s the one we wrote about back in March 2009 – they’ve now got close to 1,500 members.
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Posted in Business, food
Tagged battle, Birmingham, comments, food, grocery, Hoover, Joe Coulombe, LA Times, location, Trader Joe's