Alabama

I’m saving this comment here before it is deleted by the Al.com moderator:

From 1960 to 2010, the population of Birmingham declined from 340,887 to 212,237. In the last ten years, 46,891 jobs were lost within 10 miles of downtown Birmingham.

In 1945, there were about 340,000 people in Hiroshima, Japan (almost the same size as Birmingham) when the Enola Gay dropped the atomic bomb and killed 80,000 people while destroying 70% of the city. In 2013, there are 1.181 million people living in Hiroshima.

From 1990 to 2010, the economy of Vietnam grew at an annual average rate of 7.3%, and per capita income almost quintupled. In 2012, the economy of Vietnam grew by only 5.03%, which raised fears in the New York Times that the country is on the verge of an “economic meltdown.”

During the Vietnam War, 20 million gallons of Agent Orange and 7 million tons of ordinance was dropped on Vietnam, and anywhere from 450,000 to 1 million North Vietnamese and Viet Cong soldiers lost their lives … just in that war.

In 2012, the homicide rate per 100,000 in Birmingham was 36.28, while it was 1.08 in Vietnam in 2000. In Vietnam, a genuine “Comeback Country,” the poverty rate has declined from 60% to 20.7% over the last twenty years.

But that’s nothing: in 1963, 7 people died in civil rights related violence in Birmingham, but neither the atomic bomb being dropped on Hiroshima or the Vietnam War has hobbled Japan or Vietnam in the same way that the triumph of the Civil Rights Movement crippled Birmingham.

Note: In the 1920s, 160,000 people turned out to watch the Birmingham Barons in Rickwood Field no less than 8 times, and 299,150 people turned out to see the Barons in 1927 when “Bull Connor” was on the radio.

In 2013, 8,505 people turned out to watch the Birmingham Barons on opening night at Regions Field, their brand new $64 million dollar stadium.