Someone sell me on MS because it's hard to find much to like about it. The topography is mostly flat and boring and the natural features/amenities seem lacking, there aren't really any nice suburbs or smaller cities to live in (unlike Alabama), things seem a bit rundown almost everywhere I look (even in the neighborhoods with larger yards and bigger houses), school quality is poor, few notable major employers, etc.
Just curious, while I totally agree with you about the largely boring topography from my traveling there, what nice suburbs in smaller cities are there in Alabama to speak of? I've heard some of the suburbs north of Birmingham are okay if you don't mind being surrounded by white mega church types in mcmansion communities, and Huntsville is supposed to be okay due to the large number of educated people there for the space program. Or maybe Tuscaloosa due to the presence of the University. However, my impression of Alabama was being only a shade better than Mississippi in being a largely rural Wasteland of demonstrable substandard education, Statewide metrics, or culture ( and while yes, like Mississippi, it had an undeniably huge impact on American Musical culture as a birthplace of the Blues a century ago, that's essentially irrelevant to living there today).
That sounds more like the Southern Birmingham suburbs (Mountain Brook, Hoover, Vestavia Hills, North Shelby County) than the Northern Birmingham suburbs to me.