What does the future look like for Huntsville?

With all the positive growth of businesses and industries moving into Huntsville and Madison County, it’s an exciting time here in our community. Remington, Polaris, Cabelas, and even Whole Foods are setting up roots in our area and strengthening our economy. We thought today would be a perfect time to bring in our friend Dennis Madsen, Manager of Long Range City Planning in Huntsville, to answer a few questions about the state of our local economy and our city in general. Here’s what Dennis had to say:

What is the biggest challenge facing the city and surrounding metro areas?

“There are really two big challenges that I can think of. The first has to do with the transportation network and ensuring that it continues to serve us well. We’ve got a good network already, but we want to continually add people and continually serve the metro area. The other challenge has to do with balancing new development and redevelopment. We have spread out a lot lately in terms of square footage, and actually have a larger area than cities like Atlanta, Las Vegas, and Philadelphia. So, our challenge becomes ‘How do we re-incentivize development in the core of the city?'”

How has the big picture identified those challenges?

“We have used a 2-pronged approach to these problems. On one hand, we have a staff of professional planners looking through data, trying to take an analytical view of what we have on the ground. At the same time, we have also been doing a lot of community outreach. The expectation is that the community members have a voice and are a part of the planning process, and the response has been incredible. We’ve had a lot of dialogue with citizens all over town, which is huge. For a comprehensive growth plan to happen, we’ve got to have consensus, as well as people involved in the planning process.”

What’s in store for the future of Huntsville? What challenges are we going to see?

“I think we are definitely going to see more investment in the core of the city, and more emphasis on the redevelopment of the current infrastructure, as opposed to creating a new one. Corporations are looking to come to a place that they not only enjoy doing business, but enjoy living as well. Our town needs to have a deep culture, but how do we develop that? You see it happening downtown already, and if we can replicate that vibe in other areas of Huntsville, we can create a city of cores that all interact and play off each other to create a great city with unique and fantastic parts.”

For further information on this topic, we welcome you to visit The Big Picture.

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