Birmingham

[updated september 2024]

SO, roomiematch.com's Birmingham roommate rundown:

Birmingham is a relatively popular place to live around and nearby?

Or rather, it's Alabama's largest metro area, in which most of its residents do not properly reside. Most live in the unusually large number of suburbs immediately outside Birmingham. Since the metro population is actually widely dispersed, rent's reasonable everywhere.

Alabama keeps its art in Birmingham. It's home to the Birmingham Museum of Art, the largest art museum in the southeast, as well as Alabama's major ballet, opera, and symphony companies.

Birmingham is also synonymous to many with motorsport mania. There's NASCAR, there's Superbike, and there's a Motorsports Museum.

Or maybe fishing in the "Bass Capital of the World" is more your speed?

Birmingham also has a high population density of both dentists (University of Alabama School of Dentistry) and college athletes (headquarters of the Southeastern Conference). You could easily end up with a dentist or a college athlete or possibly even both at the same time as a roommate.

The rest of the Birmingham roommate lowdown:

• Birmingham is Alabama's largest metro area, with fewer in the city (about 200,000) and about 1.1 million in the larger metro area.
• Most of the metro population lives outside the city in an unusually large number of suburbs.
• Summers are long, hot, and humid, with many thunderstorms, while winters are mild. If you're not interested in experiencing heavy heat with thick humidity most months of the year, you'll need central AC.
• All that heat and humidity produces a lot of tree pollen most of the year too. If you or your roommates have allergies, don't forget your medication.
• home of several colleges and universities, including the University of Alabama School of Medicine, the University of Alabama School of Dentistry, and the University of Alabama at Birmingham
• headquarters of the Southeastern Conference for college athletics
• home of the Birmingham Museum of Art, the largest art museum in the Southeast
• home to Alabama's major ballet, opera, and symphony companies including Alabama Ballet, Alabama Symphony Orchestra, Birmingham Ballet, and Opera Birmingham

After you're settled down, you and your roommates should experience Birmingham's:

• White sauce: Contains mayonnaise, pepper, other (possibly secret) spices, and vinegar, and is a staple at Birmingham's BBQ joints, especially with smoked chicken.
• The Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame: Inside the Carver Theatre, celebrating the many talented jazz musicians from Alabama. It was created in 1978, moved in 1993, then renovated and refurbished in 2020. It features a museum, concert hall, and radio station you can stream online. It's all non-profit and tax deductible.
• The McWane Science Center: Features hands-on science, an IMAX theater, and nearly half a million fossils.
• The Birmingham Botanical Gardens: Over 60 acres and features interpretive, Japanese, rose, and tropical garden styles you and your roommates can tour.
• The Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum: Contains the largest collection of motorcycles in the world. This makes sense as motorsports are extremely popular here; about a dozen annual motorsport races are hosted here, including NASCAR and Superbike.
• Fishing, any of it: Birmingham has been named "Bass Capital of the World," as it hosts so very many recreational fishing tournaments which have broken so very many fishing records.
• Railroad Park: 20-acre urban green space in the middle of downtown connecting Southside and the University of Alabama campus. This area of town was mostly abandoned warehouses, but they've been transforming it into an award-winning Urban Open Space since 2010.
• City Brew Tour: You could go with your roommates. They provide over a dozen samples, beer knowledge, lunch, and roundtrip transport! However, you MUST wear closed-toe shoes on your tour. No exceptions! Your toes will be safer on the Brew Tour, even in summer.
• Vulcan, the god of fire, is revered with a 58-foot tall statue towering over Birmingham. He's the largest statue ever made in the United States, as the Statue of Liberty is larger but was forged in France. He's not wearing any pants whatsoever while he honors the city's steel-making industry.

Here's where you and your roommates can request an official group tour of Birmingham . They'll tailor it to your interests.

Notes

1.   The non-traditional roommate rent average for this city we've experienced over the last 3 years. We can't predict future rental availability, because we're neither in control of any rental market nor psychic, sorry!

But in most cities most of the time, the recent and relatively recent past are the best predictors.


2.   This idea came from smartasset.com's ranking of what a roommate saves you in 50 cities. They ranked where roommates will save you the most money, based on the average cost of a 1BR as opposed to a 2BR ÷ 2. Unsurprisingly, the more expensive the city, the more you can save, but the savings are significant in all larger metros. So we got the data for the rest of our cities from Zumper too.

This is really the minimum you could save, as you could live with more than one roommate, split more services, share food or other supplies, etc. More sharing tends to lead to more savings too, as per our roommate roadmap.

As per the rest of the description at the top of this page, we're calling this "traditional" roommate rent.


3.   From zumper.com.


4.   Directly quoted from the Trust for Public Land's parkland rating system.

"The ParkScore index awards each city up to 100 points for acreage based on the average of two equally weighted measures: median park size and parkland as a percentage of city area. Factoring park acreage into each city’s ParkScore rating helps account for the importance of larger “destination parks” that serve many users who live farther than ten minutes’ walking distance."

While each city's rundown already includes their individual ParkScore, nature lovers might like to see all roommate cities ranked for parkland.


5.   Directly quoted from Walk Score's Cities and Neighborhoods Ranking. They've ranked "more than 2,800 cities and over 10,000 neighborhoods so you can find a walkable home or apartment."

While each city's rundown already includes their individual Walk Score, dedicated pedestrians might like to see all roommate cities ranked for walkability.


6.   From various lists here on our own best roommate cities.