Two Birmingham-area cities named among the best suburbs in America

Downtown Birmingham, Alabama from atop Ruffner Mountain (Photo: Alby Headrick)
Birmingham, Alabama (Photo: Alby Headrick)

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Alabama is home to two of the best suburbs in all of America, according to a new study from Business Insider.

On Business Insider’s list of the 50 best suburbs in America, Vestavia Hills ranked in at number 49 and Mountain Brook registered near the top of the list, second only to New Albany, Ohio.

The list was compiled by researching over 2,000 areas across the country and examining the average commute to work, unemployment rate, median household income, poverty rate, percent of population with at least a bachelor’s degree, housing affordability, as well as other factors. In addition, the areas considered had to have populations between 5,000 and 100,000 and be within 40 kilometers, or approximately 25 miles, of the nearest metropolitan area.

Business Insider ranked Vestavia Hills’s “Great Schools” score of 9/10, population of 33,993, and a median household income of $81,067 as reasons it came in the top 50.

According to the list, Vestavia Hills “maintains its southern hospitality while being the fastest-growing town in Alabama.”

The other suburb that came in at the top of the list was Mountain Brook, one of Alabama’s wealthiest, safest, and most educated areas. Mountain Brook received a “Great Schools” score of 10/10, with a population of 20,416 and a median household income of $131,281.

Business Insider described the area as a “community that has five distinct shopping villages, its own school system, and residential areas designed by Warren Manning, the landscape planner behind New York’s Central Park.”

These two Alabama cities landed on a list that is primarily dominated by suburbs in the Midwest. However, this isn’t the first time these two Birmingham areas have been recognized for their high standards of living. Both of these suburbs were also previously listed on Movoto’s 10 best places to live around Birmingham earlier this year.

You can read the full list of Business Insider’s 50 best suburbs in America here.


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