What are you impressions of Atlanta in 2024?

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

Pretty much everywhere in the eastern half of the United States defaults to woods.

Mostly true, but Illinois isn't called "the Prairie State" for nothing.

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Mostly true, but Illinois isn't called "the Prairie State" for nothing.

In neighboring Indiana, this 15x5 mile patch was farmland from 1950~ until 1942~ when it was seized by the U.S. Army to test mortar shells, bombs, etc. It is now polluted with military waste and unexploded ordinances, and has returned to being woods:


I have not visited an old growth forest in Indiana (I assume that there are a few) but I have been to about six of them in Ohio, and the trees are absolutely huge. The eastern United States was basically like the Amazon except the leaves fell off every October.

[Steely Dan]

^ IN and IL are different states.

Pre-european arrival, IN was ~85% forested, while IL was only ~40% forested.

The other 60% of IL back then was primarily tall grass prairie. When the first Europeans finally got out of the woods and came upon the great prairie, their jaws hit the soil. there before them was a seemingly infinite, flat, treeless plain of some of the best black dirt on the planet. That's why 99.9% of it was plowed into cornfields in the relative blink of an eye. Almost none of it remains.


As for old growth forests in IN, there are a few small patches here and there, but 99% of it is gone. One of the patches I'm most familiar with is turkey run state park in Parke County, which has around 1,600 acres of old growth forests left, running up and down the steep ravines and bluffs of the sugar Creek valley. Beautiful area!

[Cress3803]

Been a while since I was there but physically... nice to see shorter infill type buildings in the center of the city

I do think it's biggest rival is Nashville, not Charlotte fwiw

[edale]

Originally Posted by Cress3803

I do think it's biggest rival is Nashville, not Charlotte fwiw

Perhaps for white people considering a move to the South, but I think Charlotte is a much bigger competitor for Black migrants, which is obviously a huge source of growth for Atlanta.

[pdxtex]

Black Americans are definitely on the move. In terms of percentage change Charlotte indeed had the biggest gain of large southern cities. Of large US cities, Las Vegas had the biggest percentage change last census. Atlanta was still a big draw in 2020. The Atlanta metro black population increased by almost 400k between 2010 and 2020.

[3rd&Brown]

Originally Posted by edale

Perhaps for white people considering a move to the South, but I think Charlotte is a much bigger competitor for Black migrants, which is obviously a huge source of growth for Atlanta.

I was going to say this but you beat me to it.

I think white Southerners think of Atlanta and Nashville as peer cities and black Southerners think of Atlanta and Charlotte as peer cities. I don't think I've ever met an educated upwardly mobile black person who said, hmmm, I wanna move to Nashville.

[Crawford]

To me, regardless of demographics, Nashville is a different kind of city. Atlanta and Charlotte are more like big/little brother and Nashville is more a second cousin. I actually think Nashville has more in common with Austin, a fellow recent bloomer.

Nashville has a fair share of glitz/trash/tourist appeal while Atlanta and Charlotte are business-oriented and anodyne in the same sense as Frankfurt and Stuttgart.