Birmingham Has Two Futures — And They’re Only 10 Miles Apart

On one side of Birmingham, scientists are trying to invent the medicine of the future. On the other, the city is preparing hundreds of acres of old steel land for industries that may not have arrived yet. Between them, a series of investments is beginning to reshape what Birmingham could become.

There is an interesting way to understand Birmingham’s next decade: draw a line across the city.

At one end sits UAB, Southern Research and an emerging biotechnology ecosystem built around medicine, research and artificial intelligence. At the other sits Ensley, Birmingport and hundreds of acres left behind by Birmingham’s industrial age.

Between those two poles are downtown, the airport, railroads, interstates, neighborhoods undergoing reinvestment and some of the city’s most significant new development projects.

At first glance, these appear to be completely different economic stories.

They may actually be complementary pieces of the same one.

Southside Is Trying to Turn Research Into an Industry

Around UAB, Birmingham is attempting something more ambitious than simply expanding healthcare.

The city already possesses a medical economy of national significance. The harder challenge is converting more of the intellectual property created inside that ecosystem into private companies that remain in Birmingham.

Southern Research’s expanded biotechnology facilities and the rapid uptake of laboratory space at Station 41 suggest that there is genuine demand for the missing infrastructure between university research and commercial biotechnology.

Birmingham’s Tech Hub strategy adds artificial intelligence to that equation. Instead of attempting to compete broadly for technology companies, Birmingham can specialize in an area where it already possesses a difficult-to-replicate advantage: the intersection of computing with physicians, patients, clinical research and biological science.

If the strategy works, some of Birmingham’s most important future employers may not relocate from California, Boston or North Carolina. They may begin with discoveries already being made inside Birmingham.

That is a fundamentally different economic-development model.

North Birmingham Is Being Reintroduced to the City

A few miles away, another transformation is occurring at Carraway.

The former hospital spent years as one of Birmingham’s most visible abandoned properties. Its redevelopment into The Star at Uptown is now turning an enormous piece of underutilized urban land into a new mixed-use district near Uptown, downtown and some of the city’s major institutions.

Carraway matters because it illustrates a larger Birmingham opportunity.

Some of the city’s most valuable future development sites are not empty suburban fields. They are properties left behind by previous versions of Birmingham, often surrounded by infrastructure that would be enormously expensive to reproduce today.

Reusing those sites can simultaneously create new development and repair holes in the existing city.

Then the Story Changes Completely in the West

Continue west and laboratories give way to Birmingham’s industrial landscape.

Here, the city is beginning to prepare approximately 500 acres associated with the former U.S. Steel Ensley Works as part of a broader Western Corridor manufacturing and logistics strategy.

That could become one of Birmingham’s most important long-term economic-development assets.

A 500-acre industrial site with access to rail, interstate infrastructure, utilities and Birmingport can compete for projects that simply cannot fit into Southside or downtown. Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport is also strengthening infrastructure for heavier cargo operations, adding another piece to the logistics system surrounding the region.

There is no announced megafactory occupying those 500 acres today.

But that misses the point.

Cities generally need to prepare enormous industrial sites before the company that needs one begins its search. The infrastructure is the invitation.

The Middle Is Filling In Too

The broader pattern becomes more interesting when other investments are placed on the same map.

Fannie Mae is expanding its Birmingham presence, adding another source of professional employment. The Navy is expanding training activity in the region. Costco is making a roughly $100 million investment. Data-center development introduces another industry dependent upon substantial electrical and fiber infrastructure.

At the neighborhood level, major workforce and redevelopment programs are directing capital toward communities including North Birmingham, Northside, Smithfield and Pratt.

These projects are not centrally coordinated pieces of one grand economic plan, and they should not be presented that way.

But cities rarely transform because somebody successfully executes one enormous master plan. They transform when enough independent investors and institutions begin reaching compatible conclusions about the same place.

That may be what is beginning to happen in Birmingham.

The City’s Size Could Actually Help

One of Birmingham’s underappreciated advantages is proximity.

The medical district, downtown, Carraway, the airport and the city’s western industrial areas are not separated by 60 miles of metropolitan sprawl. The region’s economic assets remain relatively close to one another.

That creates opportunities for interaction.

An advanced manufacturer can access Birmingham’s engineering and healthcare resources without locating hours from the urban core. A biotechnology company can reach the airport quickly. Professional employers can draw workers from across the metropolitan region. Industrial development can occur without requiring Birmingham to create an entirely separate city around it.

Birmingham’s future economic engines can be different without being disconnected.

Don’t Choose Between the Old City and the New One

For decades, urban reinvention was often described as replacement. Heavy industry declined, so cities were told to become technology cities. Old districts were cleared so new ones could be built.

Birmingham may have a more interesting option.

Its industrial past left behind land, infrastructure, engineering knowledge and transportation assets. Its medical economy created research, talent and institutions. New investment can connect the two rather than forcing the city to choose between them.

That could produce a Birmingham that is simultaneously a biotechnology center, a major medical city, an advanced-manufacturing location, a professional-services center and an industrial logistics hub.

The laboratories around UAB and the industrial land around Ensley may look as though they belong to different centuries.

In a strange way, they could define the same future.

One side of Birmingham is preparing to invent things that do not exist yet.

The other is preparing somewhere to build them.

And they’re only about 10 miles apart.