Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Atlanta needs to get serious about infrastructure. Hard to say a city is the most livable if a car is required. MARTA has done absolutely nothing with the system in 25 years. Traffic is just going to get worse.
I wouldn't go to the city of Atlanta after dark anymore. I used to frequent Buckhead back in the 80's and 90's, but not now. Virginia Highlands was nice 20 years ago, but not going there now.
Can't live there now unless you have a garage to secure your car. Morningside cars are broken into nightly says my ex-employee who is part of neigborhood watch. People leave their cars unlocked now so they won't break the glass.
Took my kid to Brave and Falcons games and the homeless dregs coming up to us begging scared my Son so much he wanted to go home.
Atlanta is better than LA, SF, Baltimore, Brooklyn, Philly, Detroit, DC, Chicago, but I won't be going there anytime soon. Too many gangs around Lennox and Phipps looking for an easy target...no thx.
I wouldn't go to the city of Atlanta after dark anymore. I used to frequent Buckhead back in the 80's and 90's, but not now. Virginia Highlands was nice 20 years ago, but not going there now...
I mean the list is comparing cities. There isn't any city in north America that you don't have to worry about things like your car possibly being broken into or seeing homeless people.
--------
Now is ATL the most livible city in the US? IDK, but I do feel like people that take the time to get to know the city generally end up liking it. For me I love all of the nature, diversity, diverse neighborhoods, weather, and the constant change/improvement in the city. I also appreciate that we get to have all of the big city amenities without being unaffordable. Obviously ATL needs to work out some issues including bringing more value as affordability continues to decline, but its a great place to be and if these lists want to say we're the "best/most" whatever I'll take it.
As a recent transplant to the Atlanta area, my criteria was:
- Big city (criteria was at least a million people)
- Economy not in shambles and at least growing
- Not in an arid climate (if it was going to be arid I would've just stayed in Phoenix)
- Not Chicago like winters
- Not New Orleans like summers (but would rather have this than a Chicago winter)
- Good airport
- Ideally had some degree of urbanization, which coming from Phoenix, essentially meant everywhere was an option
Atlanta was already a strong candidate. Towards the end of it all, I settled mostly on Raleigh or Charlotte, Dallas, Atlanta, or DC. I crossed off North Carolina on the pretense that I'd likely get bored while living there since it seemed mostly geared for families, it lacked urbanization, and just didn't seem as strong economically as the others. Dallas I crossed off because it lacked the overall appeal to me as DC and Atlanta did due to weather/climate/geography on top of the fact that Texas as a whole has been rather... chaotic recently I was uncertain of where it may stand in the near future. DC or Atlanta was tough decision. Between Atlanta and DC, I was essentially splitting hairs. What ultimately pulled Atlanta for the win:
- DC is heavily geared for white collar work. I do white collar work in blue collar industries (mostly), in the DC area, this is far from actual DC and deep in the exurbs of Virginia and Maryland. Of which I would pick Maryland over Virginia significantly due to having family and friends in the Baltimore and Philly area. However due to the area and how it's set up, I was starting to look more at Baltimore for work, rather than DC. DC is still an option though in my field significantly so, due to the public sector work (of which there is a bunch of) and consulting jobs being more concentrated in DC, Atlanta is known as the #2 hub in my industry. And in Atlanta's case, the private and public sector significance of jobs wasn't split between two different (even if very close) cities of DC and Baltimore, it was just Atlanta.
- DC's winning traits of having more urban/walkable neighborhoods and WMATA stopped being realistic upon looking at where I'd likely end up working (see bullet point prior).
- Atlanta is almost the closest one can get to Florida without being in Florida, a big pro since my closest family members live in SW Florida, which I've already crossed off due to it being too hot all the time and also having crappy economy in my industry and low pay. So the fact that I can drive to Florida in a day is actually a good plus for Atlanta.
- This is probably out of ignorance (I continuously fail to understand how close everything out on the East Coast is to one another even now that I live on the East Coast, I'm still on the Western standard of things being much farther apart) but DC at least to me appears far from the mountains, since I assumed one in the area wouldn't really get to any mountains until closer to West Virginia and even then maybe a bit further in than the WV and VA border. Mountains appeared easier to access in Atlanta. And while DC is closer to the beaches and coasts especially when one factors in the Chesapeake Bay... I get my beach fill for the year when I go down to Florida a couple times a year to visit family. And frankly once I started experiencing Florida beaches the only other place that really compares to a Floridian beach is a Hawaiian beach, at least in the US, so I didn't really care to have beach access. And again, one can drive to Florida or Savannah or Charleston for a beach from Atlanta readily enough, let alone fly, so Atlanta's beach access was still acceptable to me. Then with the add on of being closer to mountains made it a better place for nature access.
- While I go to the Baltimore area every year in the summer, I know that I like the summers there, but the winters were a big toss up to me for DC (Baltimore and DC are close enough to say that weather wise they are essentially the same), and I was worried they would be too snowy and cold for my liking having never been there in the winter. Atlanta was potentially hotter in the summer than the "ideal", I also know that it'd still be cooler than Florida and New Orleans, which was really my main criteria, on top of that Atlanta doesn't really get snow which I liked even more. The ideal weather for me doesn't exist in accordance with my other criteria, the ideal weather would be the taller Appalachians down south at 3-5k elevation. Guess where that happens to be close to... Atlanta.
- Atlanta's COL is not a near death sentence like the DC environs. Atlanta's COL was comparable to Phoenix's if not even maybe better than Phoenix's in certain ways.
- Since I was considering I'd probably end up in the Maryland burbs of DC, or Baltimore burbs, I was looking at using BWI to fly. Everytime I have flown in or out of BWI has been a bad experience, usually some nonsense of being stuck waiting at the gate to either connect to the gate or stuck waiting on the runway. It's at a point where I'm looking at flying in to Philadelphia moving forward when I go up there. Hadn't really dealt with ATL yet at the time but had a feeling that basically any major airport at this point was still better than BWI. Dulles and National are potentially better than BWI but that would also be under the pretense of living on the Maryland side and wanting to get over there which depending on how deep I was going to end up in Maryland would be a less than ideal situation, due to what I assumed would be wretched traffic horrors unique to the BosWash corridor. I heard that one wants to avoid crossing the Potomac regularly because of traffic chokepoints and while it's not like I fly daily it still weighed into my decision. ATL is the world's busiest airport or very close to, which was definitely intimidating but it did mean that you could probably fly anywhere you wanted out of ATL. So ATL had not only potentially better service and more places to fly to but also hadn't wronged me (I had a layover in ATL once before moving here) was a win in Atlanta's favor.
- I assumed that Atlanta, being less gentrified of a city in comparison to DC, would have more culture and soul and less of a corporate and rigid feel, and I would be more inclined to like Atlanta's "personality".
If I knew more work options existed in DC rather than being sent off to the Baltimore sphere of influence, or I worked in a different field, then it would've been likely all things considered I would have picked DC. So for me to see these two rank so highly is not a surprise. If Atlanta does not end up being my ultimate place, DC (or Maryland side of DC) is probably where I'll go.
I wouldn't go to the city of Atlanta after dark anymore. I used to frequent Buckhead back in the 80's and 90's, but not now. Virginia Highlands was nice 20 years ago, but not going there now.
Can't live there now unless you have a garage to secure your car. Morningside cars are broken into nightly says my ex-employee who is part of neigborhood watch. People leave their cars unlocked now so they won't break the glass.
Took my kid to Brave and Falcons games and the homeless dregs coming up to us begging scared my Son so much he wanted to go home.
Atlanta is better than LA, SF, Baltimore, Brooklyn, Philly, Detroit, DC, Chicago, but I won't be going there anytime soon. Too many gangs around Lennox and Phipps looking for an easy target...no thx.
Buckhead isn't that dangerous. There's actually less crime now compared to the 90s when Black Mafia Family and all sorts of rappers along with athletes (Ray Lewis) were in Buckhead. Crime has went up after the pandemic but it's not dangerous. You're just hearing about more crime now because the news reports and social media you didn't have access to 24/7 like back then. Why would a homeless person beg near the battery in Cumberland? I went to a dozen Braves games or so and never saw a homeless person there. I went to a dozen Falcons and Atlanta United games and I don't recall seeing a homeless person near Mercedes Benz stadium. However, there are homeless people near Georgia State and Woodruff Park. Why? Because most of Atlanta's homeless shelters are there so you'll see more homeless around there. I was in San Francisco a few months ago and Atlanta is nowhere near as bad as there. It felt like a 3rd world country in some San Francisco places.
I wouldn't go to the city of Atlanta after dark anymore. I used to frequent Buckhead back in the 80's and 90's, but not now. Virginia Highlands was nice 20 years ago, but not going there now.
Can't live there now unless you have a garage to secure your car. Morningside cars are broken into nightly says my ex-employee who is part of neigborhood watch. People leave their cars unlocked now so they won't break the glass.
Took my kid to Brave and Falcons games and the homeless dregs coming up to us begging scared my Son so much he wanted to go home.
Atlanta is better than LA, SF, Baltimore, Brooklyn, Philly, Detroit, DC, Chicago, but I won't be going there anytime soon. Too many gangs around Lennox and Phipps looking for an easy target...no thx.
Morningside and Virginia Highland are still very desirable — even at night. Have your intown friends or ex-employee ever mentioned why they choose to stay in the city and not move to an area that is perceived as safer?
When I’ve gone to Lenox/Phipps at night, it is honestly the same type of vibe from when I was 16 — almost 30 years ago. I don’t think crime has increased over the decades as much as you have way more commercial news/social media outlets highlighting crime in the city more than ever before. Thus creating a perception that the city is worse than it actually is.
There are a few places in the city that I wouldn’t hang out in at night. But Buckhead, Virginia Highland, and Morningside aren’t among them.
You know the mantra, “If it bleeds, it leads”. Unfortunately, many people who do not live in the city swallow it all hook, line, and sinker…
The AJC is pretty much click-bait to stir up controversy (and clicks/comments) at this point.
Last edited by equinox63; 08-28-2022 at 01:24 PM..
I don't take these lists too seriously. Huntsville, AL was the best city in America in another list, and they recently had a party to celebrate it. This list has Houston one of the worst places to live, which makes no sense either.
Gotta love Texas getting slighted so bad, with Houston ranked bottom tier and Dallas excluded altogether.
But it doesn't make sense based on the categories selected
good schools (DFW certainly has better grade schools overall than metro Atlanta)
affordable homes (DFW is similar to Atlanta, Houston is cheaper)
good jobs (DFW surpasses Atlanta is this category as well)
good airport (DFW while not as busy as Atlanta its airport is closer to the core population, also has a 2nd airport which ATL lacks)
safe areas (Atlanta has more crime than any of the Texas cities)
amenities (DFW and Houston both have better suburban amenities than Atlanta)
moderate 4 season climate (This is the only category Atlanta really is better than Texas)
Last edited by MichiganderTexan; 08-29-2022 at 07:28 AM..
But it doesn't make sense based on the categories selected
good schools (DFW certainly has better grade schools overall than metro Atlanta)
affordable homes (DFW is similar to Atlanta, Houston is cheaper)
good jobs (DFW surpasses Atlanta is this category as well)
good airport (DFW while not as busy as Atlanta its airport is closer to the core population, also has a 2nd airport which ATL lacks)
safe areas (Atlanta has more crime than any of the Texas cities)
amenities (DFW and Houston both have better suburban amenities than Atlanta)
moderate 4 season climate (This is the only category Atlanta really is better than Texas)
You don't seem to understand. DFW was not deemed worthy of inclusion in the study to begin with. All your comments about the results of the study are therefore irrelevant.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
