It's clear that Birminghamians remain unhappy with their city's leadership. On Thursday, Art Carden, and econmonics professor at Samford University, wrote a scathing op-ed criticizing the city's taxi problems. He mentioned many of the same critiques that have been leveled against the city's transportation system (cabs in particular) since the uproar began in the summer of 2014.

But one simple sentence stands out as the most important and most effective argument for opening Birmingham up for app-based ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft:

"Resistance to innovation hurts the Birmingham brand."

It's time to make the Birmingham City Council listen to its constituents.