Toxic Culture Is a Toxic City And Birmingham Is Living It

Toxic culture breeds toxic cities. And that’s exactly what has happened in the City of Birmingham under the leadership of Mayor Randall Woodfin.

Let’s start with the basics: What is toxicity?

Toxicity is the presence of harmful behaviors, systems, or environments that poison relationships, institutions, and communities. It’s not always loud or obvious; it can also be silent, slow, and systemic. It shows up when trust is broken, when accountability is dodged, and when power is used to serve a few while harming the many.

And when that toxicity is embedded into leadership, policy, and city priorities, it becomes toxic culture.

A toxic culture is what happens when performative leadership replaces real service. When certain zip codes are showered with attention while others are buried in neglect.  When City Halls reward insiders and ignore everyday residents. When libraries close, parks decay, and youth programs vanish, but the press releases keep coming.

Toxic culture looks like:

• Cronyism and favoritism dressed up as "revitalization"

• Neglected neighborhoods while downtown shines

• Performative equity speeches instead of actual equity policies

• Manipulated data and cherry-picked stats to paint a false picture of safety and progress

It’s a system that normalizes injustice, punishes dissent, and tells struggling communities to be patient while others leap forward.

And Birmingham has become a toxic city because that culture has taken root and has been allowed to grow unchecked.

When city government chooses to cater to only a select few downtown developers, political insiders, and carefully curated influencers, what’s left behind is more than neglect. It’s abandonment. Birmingham is made up of 99 neighborhoods, yet only 2 are treated as the heart, history, and hustle of the city. The remaining 97 neighborhoods are left to fend for themselves while the mayor's office focuses on issuing press releases and participating in photo ops.

You can’t pave a street in Crestwood and ignore crater-sized potholes in Central Park. You can’t build up Avondale while tearing down access in Ensley. You can’t spend millions on Southtown redevelopment while our pools sit dry, libraries are shuttered, and longstanding community centers like Smithfield Court fall into disrepair. You can’t talk about equity when Black, Brown, and working-class communities are consistently last in line for city services, if they get them at all.

That’s not revitalization. That’s targeted abandonment.

Even public safety, one of the most urgent concerns for families across Birmingham, has become part of the performance. The mayor proudly claims crime is down, waving around statistics like trophies. But statistics can be massaged. What can’t be manipulated is the pain of losing a loved one to violence, or the fear that creeps in every time sirens echo through your block.

In the last few weeks alone, there has been a visible and tragic uptick in homicides and yet the city's leadership stays silent or leans on last year’s numbers to tell us things are getting better. Numbers can be written into reports, but the people live the reality every day.

We don’t need SPIN. We need SAFETY. We need youth outreach, trauma-informed care, community policing rooted in trust, and re-entry programs that offer real second chances. Not after the violence, but before it ever begins.

And while this is happening, there’s a growing disconnect between generations. Some younger folks think the older generation is just complaining, stuck in the past, or unwilling to accept change. However, let’s be clear: the elders of this city recall what Birmingham used to be like.

They remember when there was pride on every block, when families gathered in well-kept parks, when community centers thrived, when public services were consistent, not perfect, but present. They’re not complaining, they’re comparing.

And they’re the ones still paying property taxes, still maintaining homes on streets the city won’t even bother to sweep. They are the foundation. They are the memory-keepers. And they see the difference between real progress and political performance. We should be listening.

This isn’t just poor leadership. This is a moral failure and a betrayal of Birmingham’s civil rights legacy.

This is the city where the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing shook the conscience of a nation. Where children marched for justice. Where the Black working class stood up against segregation, exploitation, and voter suppression. Birmingham is sacred ground in the struggle for justice, yet today we see a local government that has forgotten its people and its purpose.

While the city budget showers attention and amenities downtown, city-owned properties in Black and working-class neighborhoods are left blighted, boarded up, or bulldozed. Meanwhile, promises like the long-awaited CrossPlex entertainment district collect dust as entire communities beg for basic upkeep. Even beloved institutions like Libraries, which once served as safe havens for generations of children, sit quiet while developers get tax breaks and "revitalization" plans that never come to fruition.

You cannot call yourself a progressive mayor while perpetuating a plantation-style model of governance, where certain communities are meant to labor, but not to live, thrive, or grow. That is a lie dressed up in liberal language.

Let’s be clear: This isn’t just about neighborhoods. It’s about people, the essential workers, the city employees, the hospital staff, the bus drivers, the union members, the retirees, those who keep Birmingham running. These are the people who get up early, work late, and still come home to underfunded schools, forgotten parks, and neglected streets. These are the same people being asked to carry the burden while being pushed further and further out of sight.

This is environmental injustice. This is class warfare. This is systemic neglect.
This is TOXIC CULTURE.
This is BIRMINGHAM UNDER RANDALL WOODFIN.

But here's the thing about toxicity: it spreads until it’s confronted.

It’s time for residents to rise up, speak out, and demand a city budget that reflects every neighborhood, not just the blocks that make it into campaign commercials. Attend city council meetings. Call out the contradictions. Organize your neighbors. Vote like your streets depend on it, because they do.

We deserve a Birmingham where equity isn’t a buzzword, but a lived reality. Where access to city resources isn’t determined by your zip code. Where city leadership works for the people, not just for the cameras.

UNTIL every zip code is served, UNTIL every neighborhood is heard, UNTIL every resident is valued, we will keep saying it:

Toxic culture is a toxic city. We are tired of being poisoned by neglect, while the truth is buried and the people are left behind.

P.S.

WE ALL CAN TELL IT’S ELECTION SEASON BECAUSE SH*T IS GETTING DONE!