I lived East of Birmingham for a number of years. I would never go into the city proper at night and I would never pump gas at any time. The entire area is not dangerous, however. It does have some very nice suburban areas.Birmingham is a complete dump. Huntsville on the other hand is a beautiful city. Tennessee has other nice places Knoxville is really nice. San Diego is close to having no bad neighborhoods, East Village is all I can think of. The only cities I have seen that are bigger dumps than Birmingham would be Detroit and Baltimore. Chicago is mixed some nice parts and some absolute dumpster fires.