How do Alabama Residents feel about this?

I think there’s something to this. My Illinois daughter, who always intended to come home and work in Chicago after she graduated from UA, has decided after 4 years down south that she’d prefer to stay in the south. She’s planning to do a year of graduate school at UA and after that, if she gets a job in her field in Alabama, I suspect she’ll stay there. If she doesn’t, she’ll be looking at cities in the southeast. She currently has no intention of returning to Illinois - a complete 180.