The Secret is Out About Alabama, Or Should I Say In?

Alabama has been making a move over the past few years and this year beat 35 other statres!!!

What did they beat them in? The beat them in being the place to be and emerging to become yet another destination state in the South.

How do we know? According to an article, Alabama Becoming A Destination State in South by Erin Stock of the Birmingham News, it is based on net migration. (Isn't that a fancy word?)

Net migration is measured by the number of people who leave with the number of people who come. It was just a few years ago that Alabama was in the red on this with a loss of more than 8,000 in 2001-2002. Since then though the growth has been steady with 5,009 new residents in 2002-2003, 16,445 new residents in 2004-2005, and  18,427 in 2006-2007.

According to the article one of the biggest reasons for these moves are jobs. Over the past several years Alabama has moved a lot of people in who will be working in banking, at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, the Hyundai plant in Montgomery, at the Mercedes-Benz site in Vance, the Honda plant in Lincoln, a ThyssenKrupp steel plant near Mobile, and the Redstone Arsenal base in Huntsville.

Our new family has been pleased too! Again, according to the article, Sarah Kindsvater, a new resident to Birmingham's Mountain Brook community said that, "My husband and I both grew up in North Carolina, which is just a really beautiful state... We really pictured Alabama as flat and farmland. We had no idea. We were very pleasantly surprised to drive into Birmingham and find hills and mountains and beautiful views." And, Harvey Player, a new Huntsville resident noted that,  "One of the biggest positives is the reduction in his daily commute time... It's also a less stressful place to live, and people are very friendly... I suppose in the northern area up there everybody's on the go, there's a lot of hustle and bustle, they don't take time to be friendly or speak because they're kind of caught up in that world of work..."

So, it looks like the secret is out about Alabama. It is a great place to live!