Downtown Birmingham, Alabama, USA

Living in a loft in downtown Birmingham is my favorite aspect of living here. I mean, what other city in the country can you get a one bedroom, one bath spacious loft for under $200k? It’s a beautiful thing to live in the middle of a city and be part of its revitalization.

I also can’t imagine another major city where all of the people that live downtown act like a small village and are so open, friendly and would do anything for you – even help you move (even after just meeting you). I feel like if we had a child downtown, the “village” would really help us raise him/her. It’s a funny (ironic funny, not ha ha) feeling that you can go anywhere in downtown Bham and almost always run into to someone you know. It’s like Mayberry in a downtown setting…astounding.

There is one small drawback to being part of a metropolis that is restoring its vitality – after business hours, and especially on the weekends, it turns into quite the ghost town. There are some exceptions, mind you - Thursday nights are always bumping at the local bars and if there is a large event like City Stages (which is no more) or Art Walk, people are abuzz downtown. But other than that, it’s awfully quiet around town.

My biggest issue being Sundays - NOTHING is open (well, to be fair, Magic City Grill & Za Za are open for brunch/lunch). So on a day when we would otherwise love to be patronizing our local establishments, we have few options. I’d love to be able to get a coffee at Urban Standard or have brunch at Café Dupont.

Sundays make us have to drive to Crestline or Hoover and spend our money there. I know that, in general, not much is open on Sundays, especially in Birmingham, but downtown is particularly bad. I’d love to help support more establishments so they can stay open on Sundays downtown. It would make living in a great urban area even more fantastic.