The city of Birmingham, Alabama, packs a lot of history into its relatively short 140 years. The Greater Metro Birmingham Area has a population of approximately 1.1 million, which is about one-quarter of Alabama’s total population, and Birmingham is Alabama’s largest city. Yet it’s also home to a replica of the Statue of Liberty on the city’s outskirts; Rickwood Field, the nation’s oldest baseball stadium; the birthplace of a number of other athletes, including Charles Barkley and nine-time Olympic gold medalist Carl Lewis; the oldest and largest Veterans Day celebration; home to Mary Anderson, who invented and patented the windshield wiper in 1903; and Red Mountain Park, a 1,200-acre public space, which is one of the biggest urban parks in the country and which 40-percent larger than New York City’s Central Park.
It’s also home to some recent political protests, to which no U.S. or global city is immune, including The Water Works Board of the City of Birmingham (Birmingham Water Works), which is the largest water system in Alabama and has been named one of the Top 5 Water Systems for clean water in the U.S. by Forbes magazine.