The real scandal is the long pattern of corrupt political leadership of Birmingham.
Birmingham was once an industrial capital, and in the middle of the last century was bigger than Atlanta, and in many ways better positioned economically to lead the south east. High taxes and a corrupt political culture drove Birmingham into the dirt. A couple generations later, Atlanta has one of the busiest airports in America, world-class universities, and hosted the Olympics, while Birmingham can't provide running water.
Elections DO matter. A major difference between Birmingham and Atlanta is that Birmingham became the poster city for racism because of the way Bull Conner responded to civil rights protesters in 1963. Atlanta, on the other hand, became known as "The City too Busy to Hate", and ever since the two cities have had drastically different fortunes.
I was watching a video of some Alabama state legislators discussing changes to the state's alcohol laws and came to the conclusion that Alabama is going to remain poor for a long time to come. Alvin Holmes in particular seems like an idiot. I do not write this just to be vulgar and insulting; the man honestly seems dumb and foolish. Several of his colleagues seemed to be almost as bad.
And this is why instead of a large city of Birmingham, you have a large amount of spun off mini-cities in the area each with their own schools and municipal infrastructure (Hoover, Mountain Brook, etc). Of the many friends I know that live in Birmingham, none of them actually technically live in the city of Birmingham.
The separate school districts of Birmingham suburbs aren't exactly due to corruption... many of them emerged in the 1950s-70s as a way of evading desegregation.
Birmingham was once an industrial capital, and in the middle of the last century was bigger than Atlanta, and in many ways better positioned economically to lead the south east. High taxes and a corrupt political culture drove Birmingham into the dirt. A couple generations later, Atlanta has one of the busiest airports in America, world-class universities, and hosted the Olympics, while Birmingham can't provide running water.
Elections matter.