re: What does Atlanta hang its hat on?

I've spent time or lived in some big cities .... and often look back on my time in ATL fondly.

Tons of talent, great neighborhoods, a very diverse and good food scene. Arguably, the best place in the country for music on a national touring level.
Yes Downtown sucks, the falcons suck and the traffic can be challenging, but it is a vibrant city and not far from nature.

Anybody that says otherwise has not spent more than a few weeks there. It's a long term play.

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Nashville has music and "mountains" "close-ish

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Atlanta is closer to the mountains than Nashville

The mighty mighty Atlanta Falcs football franchise.

Two times NFC Champs !!

WOOP WOOOOOP !+

Wife is born/raised in Alpharetta.
We are raising a family just north of there around Milton. -
The only time we go through downtown is driving to the beach or to the airport.
I’ve been here for 6 years and here is what I love about where we live:
- Economy is rocking in northern burbs
- Schools are excellent
- Weather is great - 4 seasons
- Golf courses are really good
- Blue Ridge mountains are 45 minutes north
- Deer lease is 2 hours south and really good whitetail hunting
- Beaches are 6-7 hour drive to FL or SC
- 1 hour drive to international airport and fly anywhere in the world nonstop
- Still strong southern culture and food up here
- Low crime
- Strong family culture in neighborhoods and communities
- Most people are Christian
- Braves games
- Nashville,Knoxville, Charlotte, Birmingham, Greenville, Savannah, Hilton Head, Sea Island are all reasonable drives, 6 hours or less with the family.
- Wife’s family are all within 30 minutes of each other.

Checks a lot of boxes for us.

4 seasons, trees, beautiful topography, jobs, the ease to fly anywhere in the world, and a never ending supply of SEC poontang.

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4 seasons

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Not like western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee. Not even close.

The fact that it’s 1,000 feet in elevation is a surprise to a lot of people. That helps take the edge off of some of the hottest weather and provides for the rolling green hills in pretty much all parts of town, especially north of I-20.

Economic opportunities

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No bullshite private-equity owned ‘concept’ restaurants like Buckhead (which is obscenely overrated), just miles of authentic owner-operated restaurants that are fantastic. It’s my favorite thing about living here.

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There's much, much more to the Atlanta food scene than Buckhead, which is too often characterized by over-priced, trendy joints that focus more on presentation than anything else.

Houston may have Atlanta beat on TexMex, I don't know because I don't really care that much for TexMex. I much prefer MexMex and Atlanta has plenty of that. I would think Houston does too, if you head to the back of the many tiendas and look for the little abuelas making tortillas and tacos and birria and puerco pibil, and maybe even tlayudas if they are from Oaxaca.

If you want any variety of Asian, go to Buford highway. You can pretty much find it all there...Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, Malaysian, Indonesian, Phillipino, whatever.

You can find good example of cooking from every continent execpt Antartica, and maybe Australia -- not familiar with any Australian places.

Traffic, heat, and traffic