re: Atlanta - what's special about it?

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And outside of the young, trendy areas, Atlanta is terribly segregated (not intentionally) by race/class. In most other cities I have lived in, people of all classes and races bump into each other a lot more. In Atlanta, most families are holed up in a suburb surrounded by people just like them.

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Eh, this is both correct in some ways and very, very wrong in others. For starters, unless you're in Forsyth or something you will struggle to go a day without bumping into quite a few people who look and live differently from you. Midtown is probably whiter than huge swaths of the suburbs now.

Reality is that Atlanta has one of the few serious middle class black contingents in the country. This means they have the buying power to get out into the suburbs in a way you don't see in almost any other city (probably the only major city where this is true).

There are very few parts of Atlanta that are highly segregated on more than a neighborhood basis. Even the areas where residents are largely white see huge influxes of black visitors from miles and miles away. People will drive to Lenox from McDonough or further.

This can be good or bad depending on how you look at it. If you favor everyone mixing together, Atlanta has that more than any other city in the country. There is literally no commercial part of Atlanta proper you can go to that won't be diverse. Largely the same in the suburbs. Go to Alpharetta and you'll see minorities. Same is true in most parts of Cobb, almost all of Gwinnett, the entire southside. In town, the Beltline, West Midtown, Shops of Buckhead, all of it.

The not so good part is the decline of the suburbs as people less focused on the traditional suburban life flood into them (good schools, peace and quiet, etc.). TBH I'd probably send my kids to 1-2 public high schools in the entirety of the north metro. They're not terrible but they're not the clear choice they once were. It's happening most places, I'm sure a lot of people would say the same for Plano and Frisco schools vs how they were 10-15 years ago.

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Atlanta, Houston and Dallas are solid places to live with good economies.

Nobody is jacked up about visiting these places.

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Yep. There's definitely zero reason to be a tourist in Atlanta (unless you're into MLKJ or something).

But if you work from home or have a short commute, it isn't a bad place. If i had to drive during rush hourS, I would shut down this southern base immediately.

I tolerate it because we live in MT most of the summer and as much of ski season as possible, and because I can drive quickly to mountains, beaches, lakes, and most of my wife's and my family, and easily fly anywhere.

And my neighborhood was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted to be an urban forest or sorts. From my house, I can run/hike/bike for miles and miles without being on a street.

Culturally, it's pretty lame. I've never fit in here. But with 6 million people, you can cobble together a tribe.

I got a job here out of school that paid 2X what the equivalent position paid in New Orleans, and my dad was here at the time, so it was a no-brainer. But I planned to stay one year. That was almost 20 years ago....

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Reality is that Atlanta has one of the few serious middle class black contingents in the country. This means they have the buying power to get out into the suburbs in a way you don't see in almost any other city (probably the only major city where this is true).

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Yes I don't disagree in the sense that Atlanta is a place with lots of opportunities for the black middle class. But the problem is that most of those people are in the southern suburbs. The northern suburbs are primarily white, with Asian enclaves all over the northern suburbs. That is what I mean by segregated. Probably a lot of other big cities are like this, but that combined with the blandness of Atlanta suburbia just doesn't do much for me.

I grew up in Charleston, and you are surrounded by people of all kinds of different classes/races (Mount Pleasant being an exception). You naturally bump into each other all the time. I didn't realize how much I missed that until I moved away from Atlanta. I experienced more of that in places like Virginia Beach than I ever did in Atlanta.

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I grew up in Charleston, and you are surrounded by people of all kinds of different classes/races (Mount Pleasant being an exception). You naturally bump into each other all the time. I didn't realize how much I missed that until I moved away from Atlanta. I experienced more of that in places like Virginia Beach than I ever did in Atlanta.

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This just seems impossible, but perhaps part of it is you not having lived here for a while. Atlanta is very likely the most integrated metro area of a major city in the United States.

Great place to live. Just like Houston & DFW. It has many good paying jobs, major airports, major entertainment options, restaurant options, etc etc...


Nice topography too from my understanding. It’s definitely not hard on the eyes.

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Which makes a difference. Comparing it to Dallas, which is a much more manicured city overall, Atlanta is much more naturally aesthetically pleasing IMO. You get used to one thing and it's hard to adjust.

I think if you're from Dallas you'd find Atlanta to be dumpier and more poorly kept, while as an Atlantan in Dallas I'd be depressed by the comparably barren landscape in parts.

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The natural aesthetics of Atlanta are far superior to Houston or Dallas. As is its drivability to other interesting areas.

The question really is, why did Atlanta become such an attractive place that led to all of this? There were underlying factors that led to the growth of Atlanta....parks and "culture" are the results of the growth, not the reason

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There just aren't really lily-white areas of Atlanta anymore

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East Cobb? Sandy Springs? North Fulton County? It's 90% white and Asian.

My wife went to the public school in East Cobb and I think there were less than ten black people in the entire public school. Asians and some Indians, yes. But it was almost all the same socioeconomic class.

Drive north into suburbia for 20 minutes, and drive south into suburbia for 20 minutes. It's like two different suburban worlds. That is what I am referring to.

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This just seems impossible, but perhaps part of it is you not having lived here for a while.

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I moved from there 5 years ago. I know that of which I speak. Lived in East Cobb for almost 10 years. 80% of the people in that area are upper middle class white or Asian, and the families rarely go mix it up in areas that are predominantly middle class black.