[dp1234]

And this is why instead of a large city of Birmingham, you have a large amount of spun off mini-cities in the area each with their own schools and municipal infrastructure (Hoover, Mountain Brook, etc). Of the many friends I know that live in Birmingham, none of them actually technically live in the city of Birmingham.

[_delirium]

The separate school districts of Birmingham suburbs aren't exactly due to corruption... many of them emerged in the 1950s-70s as a way of evading desegregation.