What are you impressions of Atlanta in 2024?

[pdxtex]

Atlanta is a tough nut to crack for me. It seems like it has a thriving economy
but its urban identity is still a work in progress. Maybe that's just the sunbelt? Shedding decades of car dependency with new high density projects. Im interested tho. It seems like its heading in the right direction and is about to become an even more influential place. Heading there in the spring for a bit of recon, any suggestions?

[homebucket]

I've never been so I can't say. Not sure I'll ever go for purely tourism reasons tbh. As a west coaster, is it worth a visit? Seems like it gets overlooked compared to its east coast counterparts like NYC, Boston, Philly, DC, and to its south, Orlando/Miami.

[3rd&Brown]

I'm a hard core urbanite and I love Atlanta. Meaning, I see all it's flaws but I also love where it's going.

I think it's the only city in the SE I could live in. It has increasing numbers of walkable nodes though I don't see a time in my lifetime when it will all connect. Even so, it's moving in the right direction.

I love the physical topography of Atlanta. The tree canopy. The local building vernacular. I love the black affluence, the civic pride, and the general sense of enthusiasm. And I say this as a 45 yo white guy.

It's also hard to beat Atlanta Hartsfeld International Airport. You can basically take a 1 seat flight to almost anywhere in the world. It's very very impressive.

I wish Atlanta could find a way to extend Marta and meld it with a more robust regional rail system and implement true light rail for intra-perimeter trips. When I'm there, I use Marta to get to a surprising number of things...I think I'm more familiar with it than even the locals. The traffic in Atlanta is mind numbing...not just because of its sheer scale, but because it is always there. No matter if you get on a freeway at rush hour or at 4pm on a Sunday, you're going to sit in bumper to bumper traffic at some point.

[pdxtex]

Yeah nodes! It seems like it's a collection of high density TOD type stuff. Retail and housing centered around Marta stops but its also got hilly and twisty topography so a clean orthogonal street grid is not part of the program. But if you are looking urbanity in the south it might be one of the best options. Cycling culture seems to be evolving also which I like. Im glad you mentioned enthusiasm too. Thats important. I think COVID really kneecapped the west coasts' civic spirit. I don't know if that's temporary or not but it seems like America's cultural drive has shifted and is aiming at Texas and Piedmont. The west took COVID more personal than the rest of the country for some reason.

[iheartthed]

I haven't been there in 2024, so my opinions are based on 4 - 5 years ago... But as someone who has spent time stuck in Atlanta traffic on numerous occasions, I don't think there's anything that can ever be done to "fix" Atlanta's layout for me. I see why some people like it though.

[hipster duck]

I was in Atlanta 18 years ago, so my opinion is very out of date. But, from the comfort of my armchair:

- Center of black America;
- Was more on the map twenty or more years ago than it is today (I feel like Miami is much more prominent than it was back then, and has stolen some of ATL's thunder);
- Obviously a car-dependent sprawling place, but probably the most "homey" of the Sunbelt metros of over 5M+ - the one that actually pays more than lip service to livability (e.g. Belt Line, various islands of walkability, a Midtown that actually is a very pleasant, walkable, dense neighborhood).
- The big companies out of Atlanta feel very old school: CNN, Coke, Delta, Home Depot.

[pdxtex]

All four of the south's really big cities, Miami, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas seem to be ascending at the same time. I get what you are saying tho, maybe Atlanta had its media moment a decade or two ago but I don't think that's stopped people from moving there at all.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by pdxtex

All four of the south's really big cities, Miami, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas seem to be ascending at the same time. I get what you are saying tho, maybe Atlanta had its media moment a decade or two ago but I don't think that's stopped people from moving there at all.

For sure - I didn't mean to imply that Atlanta was stagnating, it's just that the South doesn't have one clear, big city that dominates everywhere else like the Midwest does or New England does, so Atlanta, Miami, Houston and Dallas kind of jockey around in people's consciouness and each have their moment. Right now doesn't seem like Atlanta's moment.

Another thing about the South is that it kind of bleeds into other regions, and there are some very big, very prominent cities that are kind of in the grey zone of what we would consider "the South". So, Miami, Houston, Dallas and DC are all roughly the same size, all very important and big and you can argue one way, or another, that these cities are Southern or not.

Then there's the fact that the old spiritual and cultural capital of the South - the Kyoto or Florence of the South, if you will - is New Orleans. Atlanta is definitely in the Deep South, but not the Deep South associated with the Mississippi river and its Delta, which is a very important subregion that a lot of people think about when they think about "the South".

[pdxtex]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

For sure - I didn't mean to imply that Atlanta was stagnating, it's just that the South doesn't have one clear, big city that dominates everywhere else like the Midwest does or New England does, so Atlanta, Miami, Houston and Dallas kind of jockey around in people's consciouness and each have their moment. Right now doesn't seem like Atlanta's moment.

Another thing about the South is that it kind of bleeds into other regions, and there are some very big, very prominent cities that are kind of in the grey zone of what we would consider "the South". So, Miami, Houston, Dallas and DC are all roughly the same size, all very important and big and you can argue one way, or another, that these cities are Southern or not.

Then there's the fact that the old spiritual and cultural capital of the South - the Kyoto or Florence of the South, if you will - is New Orleans. Atlanta is definitely in the Deep South, but not the Deep South associated with the Mississippi river and its Delta, which is a very important subregion that a lot of people think about when they think about "the South".

the Kyoto of the south. thats funny.

[TempleGuy1000]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Atlanta is definitely in the Deep South, but not the Deep South associated with the Mississippi river and its Delta, which is a very important subregion that a lot of people think about when they think about "the South".

I agree, but, while people might not think of it, the 'Piedmont' region spanning between Atlanta and Charlotte does, imo, have it's own identity and culture. In the 21st century, it's positioned itself as a bit of 'New South' Sunbelt-type of place with top Universities, pro sports, and major global corporations. I never heard people talk up Greenville, SC before a couple of years ago, but you will absolutely see people hype it up these days.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piedmo...tic_megaregion

[pdxtex]

Originally Posted by TempleGuy1000

I agree, but, while people might not think of it, the 'Piedmont' region spanning between Atlanta and Charlotte does, imo, have it's own identity and culture. In the 21st century, it's positioned itself as a bit of 'New South' Sunbelt-type of place with top Universities, pro sports, and major global corporations. I never heard people talk up Greenville, SC before a couple of years ago, but you will absolutely see people hype it up these days.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piedmo...tic_megaregion

I definitely underestimate Atlanta's educational prowess. Between Georgia Tech, Emory, and the other universities, there's 14 billion dollars of endowment money sitting there. Add that to the research triangle and that's a lot of innovation.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by pdxtex

Atlanta is a tough nut to crack for me. It seems like it has a thriving economy
but its urban identity is still a work in progress. Maybe that's just the sunbelt? Shedding decades of car dependency with new high density projects. Im interested tho. It seems like its heading in the right direction and is about to become an even more influential place. Heading there in the spring for a bit of recon, any suggestions?

I had friends that lived there pre-pandemic - now in Portland, lol.

In general, like similar cities such as Dallas, I was pleasantly surprised by many things. The negatives were already to be expected (i'd driven through Atlanta heading to Savannah or South Florida before) and the positives were either different or better than expected. The climate is arguably the best and most mild of the large southern cities - hurricane remnants notwithstanding. Summer weather is often milder in Atlanta than St. Louis or Nashville and of course winters are as expected extremely mild.

Atlanta has had the worst traffic jams that I can recall - even having driven around Los Angeles and Chicago a fair amount (Haven't driven around metro NYC) - but, expected.

[3rd&Brown]

Originally Posted by pdxtex

I definitely underestimate Atlanta's educational prowess. Between Georgia Tech, Emory, and the other universities, there's 14 billion dollars of endowment money sitting there. Add that to the research triangle and that's a lot of innovation.

Don't forget Spelman and Morehouse. Clark Atlanta holds its own weight as well and UGA has been ascendant for years in the public rankings.

[pdxtex]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

I had friends that lived there pre-pandemic - now in Portland, lol.

In general, like similar cities such as Dallas, I was pleasantly surprised by many things. The negatives were already to be expected (i'd driven through Atlanta heading to Savannah or South Florida before) and the positives were either different or better than expected. The climate is arguably the best and most mild of the large southern cities - hurricane remnants notwithstanding. Summer weather is often milder in Atlanta than St. Louis or Nashville and of course winters are as expected extremely mild.

Atlanta has had the worst traffic jams that I can recall - even having driven around Los Angeles and Chicago a fair amount (Haven't driven around metro NYC) - but, expected.

did your friends leave Atlanta because of the pandemic or just for other reasons? also traffic eh? that seems to come up alot in conversation. my parents say the same thing. dont drive in atlanta! they go to florida but drive around the city. haha.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by pdxtex

did your friends leave Atlanta because of the pandemic or just for other reasons? also traffic eh? that seems to come up alot in conversation. my parents say the same thing. dont drive in atlanta! they go to florida but drive around atlanta. haha.

They had been in doctoral programs at Emory before heading overseas and then returning to the U.S. for work reasons.

They like to move around and also lived in Los Angeles before heading to PDX - Atlanta's core stands as one of the favorite places they've lived in the U.S.

[MolsonExport]

Pretty similar to my impressions in 2023

[mhays]

I like the hills and trees. I hate the astonishing amount of extremely-low-density sprawl; flying over it is a horror show. I like that denser nodes are booming, aided by a good rail core, but don't like how car-dependent even these places are.

[DCReid]

I think that Atlanta used to be just about the only 'game' in town for the southeast US (excluding FL), but now has serious competition from the likes of Charlotte, Nashville, and Raleigh/Durham. Not that those metros were 'minor' in years past, but now they are much more competitive for the spotlight in all areas, business, entertainment, sports, education, etc. I recall visiting Charlotte about 20 years ago and getting the impression that it was so 'provincial' compared to Atlanta, but don't know how it would compare now. But it does not seem that Atlanta 'dominates' discussions or views about the southeast that it used to even 20 years ago. I think its high point was the 1990s decade - and the metro grew nearly 40% during that decade and it had the Olympics. But at least the city of Atlanta is now growing as fast as the metro, so it is densifying despite the sprawl. It has been barely growing and even declining since 1960 even as its metro ballooned from 1.3 million to over 6 million now. It's hard to believe that in 1960, the city population of 487K would have been nearly 40% of the metro 1.3 million metro. Now, it's less than 10%, but at least its keeping pace. [All sats per Wiki]

[ColDayMan]

I do appreciate Atlanta's small-scaled streets in quiet, cozy, walkable neighborhoods, particularly on the eastside. It's charming to walk to Little Five Points or Virginia Highlands from an alley-looking street with southern-style housing. I dig it.

But that traffic. Lawd.

[mhays]

I also like the narrow streets.