City-Data Atlanta Forum Posters: City of Atlanta or Suburban Residents? (Sandy Springs: condo, crime)

[noah]

ITP-- Mid 30's, married with 1 kid. Really like living in the city and hope to stay intown. Seems to me there are lots of opportunities intown to get your kids involved in things but time will tell as ours is a baby still. I guess I am part of the crowd that has lived in suburbs before (not Atlanta) and would much prefer an urban environment, especially like being able to walk to parks etc.

[tikigod311]

Originally Posted by JPD

People who choose to live on the fringes of the metro area do so because they want to be as far away from Atlanta as possible while still taking advantage of the benefits of being in a major metro area, so let them stay away from this forum. They aren't missed.

Seems awfully hostile. I am currently living pretty far out in the suburbs, hell, you could consider them the exurbs. But I love the city of Atlanta, more so than any other city / place. I also love my relatively small suburban town. Many of my friends and family that live in this area love Atlanta as well. Yes, most of them would not want to live there if given the chance, but they visit often and enjoy what the city has to offer.

I don't see the harm in that. Not to put words in your mouth and sorry if this is not what you mean, but I get the impression that you feel like folks in the suburbs are cheating the system. They get to live out of their affordable single family home but still get to take advantage of what the city has to offer. Is there anything wrong with that? Should folks from the suburbs be considered so detached that they may as well be tourists? I understand that suburbanites aren't paying the taxes that folks in Fulton and Dekalb are, but they don't use all the services that the residents of those counties use.

Atlanta would not have many of the great things it has unless it had the large suburban base it has surrounding it. Its not the city it is due to its immediate population, its mostly because it serves as a huge regional area.



But yeah, if the majority of the forum was suburbanites, it would be kind of annoying

[berkeleylake]

I have lived in the City of Atlanta and ITP, but the majority of the time I have lived in the suburbs.

[ATLTJL]

I thought the accompanying video gives a nice synopsis of some peoples' perceptions of what it's like to come in town

Great song from a great movie!

I loved The Warriors growing up. In some ways, it tainted my view of cities. Watching movies like that and Death Wish, and so on, it was easy to get the vibe that if you live in New York you get mugged every week and are likely to be murdered. I know it was a lot more dangerous in the 70s, but of course The Warriors is a comic book futuristic fiction story. Of course, I didn't know that at 10 years old.

Even though I know better now, The Warriors is still one of my favorite movies. In fact, one of my lifelong dreams is to go to New York and spend a couple of days exploring the course the Warriors took from Van Cortlandt park to Coney Island and documenting it on video.

Seems awfully hostile.

I couldn't agree more. I've said it before and I'll say it again: there is WAY more hostility on this board from the ITP folks to the OTP people than vice versa. This is just another example. Nothing negative was ever said about the city, and then boom, someone pipes in with this. Of course, it's always from the same handful of outspoken crazy people, but it's still there.

It's weird because it puts me on the defensive about the suburbs. Which is kind of stupid because even though I live there now, I have lived in the city of Atlanta for a lot longer than I have lived in the suburbs. I don't think either is better, I just think they are different. Some day soon my wife and I will sit down and make the decision whether to have kids or not. If we decide we aren't going to, I'd say there's a pretty good chance we will move back into town. But if we decide to start a family, I doubt we'd have enough disposable income to live in the city. There's nothing in me that thinks the suburbs are any better than the city, so it feels odd to constantly have to be defending them.

[JPD]

Originally Posted by tikigod311

Seems awfully hostile. I am currently living pretty far out in the suburbs, hell, you could consider them the exurbs. But I love the city of Atlanta, more so than any other city / place. I also love my relatively small suburban town. Many of my friends and family that live in this area love Atlanta as well. Yes, most of them would not want to live there if given the chance, but they visit often and enjoy what the city has to offer.

I don't see the harm in that. Not to put words in your mouth and sorry if this is not what you mean, but I get the impression that you feel like folks in the suburbs are cheating the system. They get to live out of their affordable single family home but still get to take advantage of what the city has to offer. Is there anything wrong with that? Should folks from the suburbs be considered so detached that they may as well be tourists? I understand that suburbanites aren't paying the taxes that folks in Fulton and Dekalb are, but they don't use all the services that the residents of those counties use.

Atlanta would not have many of the great things it has unless it had the large suburban base it has surrounding it. Its not the city it is due to its immediate population, its mostly because it serves as a huge regional area.



But yeah, if the majority of the forum was suburbanites, it would be kind of annoying

The problem is that it is extremely common for people in the far suburbs to be hostile towards the city, while at the same time reaping the benefits of its existence. They refuse to accept that both the city and the metro area benefit from each other. That's disgusting to me, and if that's hostile, too bad.

[JPD]

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

Of course, it's always from the same handful of outspoken crazy people, but it's still there.

For the record, this is a reportable offense since it is a personal attack directed squarely at me.

I will take back nothing I have said, and for the record, although I live in the city now, I have spent more years living in the suburbs than most of the people on this forum. So I know from where I speak.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

I've said it before and I'll say it again: there is WAY more hostility on this board from the ITP folks to the OTP people than vice versa. This is just another example. Nothing negative was ever said about the city, and then boom, someone pipes in with this. Of course, it's always from the same handful of outspoken crazy people, but it's still there.

It seems just the opposite to me, ATLTJL.

Although we live inside the city I am always boosting our wonderful suburbs. Yet I can't recall many (if any) instances going the other way.

You're right that there are a few know-nothings who say negative things about the burbs, but that's complete nonsense.

However, if you did a count of which area receives the most negative comments, it would have to be overwhelmingly against the city proper.

[ThreeSides]

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

This is a fascinating question. So far, part of what it shows in the real bias of this board and why opinions here so often don't mesh with the average Atlanta metro resident. The metro area has about 5.5 million people, but what does the city have? Like 400,000 or so? That means that less than 10% of metro Atlantans are proper Atlantans, but on this board, it is almost half. Interesting.

I'd love to drill this data down and figure out the age of the posters.

As I was driving into town today, it occurred to me that I remember when I lived intown. For someone in their 20s, the idea of living OTP may seem preposterous. That makes sense, because intown is where the action is. For someone in their 40s with 3 kids, living intown may seem preposterous because being near bars, museums, and restaurants is fairly meaningless to them. For empty nesters, it probably goes both ways.

I'd like to test my hypothesis out. I think your station in life, but most specifically age, is a great determining factor in what part of the city you find most desireable.

I put your hypothesis to the test while at work. I asked the 20 something crowd why they didn't live in midtown/ downtown. Of course, I only asked a handful of people. However, the consensus was that for the money, you don't get a lot of apt. They felt that respective their locations offered similar amenities and more apt. for the price. I'm the messenger, don't shoot.

I'm in my early 40s, have a wife, and three children, young children. Proximity to work was important to me. I presume that a large number of the midtown/ downtown dwellers also work there.

[GeorgiatoChina]

Originally Posted by ThreeSides

I put your hypothesis to the test while at work. I asked the 20 something crowd why they didn't live in midtown/ downtown. Of course, I only asked a handful of people. However, the consensus was that for the money, you don't get a lot of apt. They felt that respective their locations offered similar amenities and more apt. for the price. I'm the messenger, don't shoot.

I'm in my early 40s, have a wife, and three children, young children. Proximity to work was important to me. I presume that a large number of the midtown/ downtown dwellers also work there.

If the 20 something's aren't yuppies making 60k+ a year and/or have no problem with roommates then of course they won't live in midtown or downtown due to the inflated rate prices. Atlanta isn't cool, walkable, emenity rich or fun enough to live like a bum just to be intown like Chicago for example.

[JPD]

Originally Posted by ThreeSides

I put your hypothesis to the test while at work. I asked the 20 something crowd why they didn't live in midtown/ downtown. Of course, I only asked a handful of people. However, the consensus was that for the money, you don't get a lot of apt. They felt that respective their locations offered similar amenities and more apt. for the price. I'm the messenger, don't shoot.

I'm in my early 40s, have a wife, and three children, young children. Proximity to work was important to me. I presume that a large number of the midtown/ downtown dwellers also work there.

You left out the two most important pieces of information: where your workplace is and where the people you talked to live.

If I was still in my 20s I would have no desire to live Downtown or Midtown. Actually, I would never desire to live Downtown or Midtown. As a 20-something, I would rather live in Candler Park, Inman Park/L5P, Cabbagetown, EAV, some parts of Old Fourth Ward, Poncey-Highland, Castleberry Hill (maybe), Grant Park, some parts of Edgewood, certain parts of Va-Hi, and less likely but still possible: Decatur (city), Kirkwood, East Lake, Lake Claire, Ormewood.