Fate of tower is still not decided

Every city except New York seems to have an inferiority complex. Your big cities -- LA and Chicago -- they tend to look to New York and say, "We're just as good as them!" Maybe they are, but they're not New York, and they're not going to be New York. Atlanta is in the same boat; the people who run the city want it to be one of the great cities of the world. Well, it's not, and it's not going to be anytime soon. Birmingham, meanwhile, wants to be Atlanta. Anytime there's a foolish city project, Atlanta's name comes up. "Fifty years ago, Birmingham was the same size as Atlanta, and they built an airport and we didn't, and now they're a big city and we suck!" Of course, it's not the fifties any more (though it increasingly feels that way) and Birmingham isn't going to become a big-time city by building an airport they don't need, or a domed stadium, or a "technological corridor", or anything like that. It doesn't work that way.

Every other city in Alabama, meanwhile, looks to Birmingham. I don't really know why, but Huntsville, for instance, was backing the silly pipeline project I mentioned a few days ago because Birmingham has a pipeline. And Mobile (getting to the subject, finally) wants to build a ridiculous office and hotel tower that there is absolutely no need for, for one reason and one reason only: it would be taller than any building in Birmingham. There's no shortage of office space or of land in Mobile, and this tower will cost a load of money. A lot of it is coming out of the city coffers in the form of infrastructure, and the city can't really afford it. But it won't matter, because Mobile will be able to say, "Mine is bigger than Birmingham's!"