A surge of new residents, particularly in tech-rich Northern Alabama, has grown the Yellowhammer State's workforce.The state still has serious quality-of-life issues involving inclusiveness, voting rights and health.
The engine for Alabama's growth is the Huntsville area, where Morgan and his wife Angie have been selling real estate for 20 years. The home of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, with some 7,000 employees, as well as major data centers for Facebook and Google, metropolitan Huntsville's population has grown 7% in just the past three years.
In the Infrastructure category, the most important this year, the study includes new metrics on so-called site readiness programs, which link prospective companies with certified, shovel-ready sites to build. Alabama's program, known as AdvantageSite, is one of the strongest in the nation, according to data compiled for CNBC by the Site Selectors Guild, an industry trade group.
Having a strong site readiness program — which was not a consideration in the CNBC rankings before this year — helped Alabama improve its rank in the Infrastructure rating to No. 8 this year, up from No. 13 last year.Alabama may be the Most Improved State, but there is still plenty of room for more improvement, based on the data.
Alabama is one of only five states — along with Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina and Texas — with no law against discrimination in public accommodations for nondisabled people, according to theRepublican Gov. Kay Ivey of a"systematic attack" against LGBTQ+ people, with a series of laws she signed over the past two years.
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