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As a black american the only thing ATL offers me over ATL is a better black nightlife. Other than that LA wins easily if I had the money. I am a big fan of large cities and metro areas in general.
Not sure about that. Isn't Atlanta traffic more at a standstill? LA has horrible traffic, but it does move. The problem is, you can't escape it. The boulevards, avenues are still full of cars. I think that's what frustrating to people.
Not sure about that. Isn't Atlanta traffic more at a standstill? LA has horrible traffic, but it does move. The problem is, you can't escape it. The boulevards, avenues are still full of cars. I think that's what frustrating to people.
It can be at certain times and when it rains, there will be accidents to slow it down. LA has more people and tourists..
Not sure about that. Isn't Atlanta traffic more at a standstill? LA has horrible traffic, but it does move. The problem is, you can't escape it. The boulevards, avenues are still full of cars. I think that's what frustrating to people.
I think that judging whether or not traffic "moves" is highly variable. I've traveled and driven all over a lot a lot. The best way to judge traffic differences imo is to look at how long the rush hour is and how much traffic there is outside of rush hour. LA is pretty bad with that metric. We have stop dead traffic at 11am on Sunday and 11 pm on Saturday. Not an accident or roadwork, just traffic. And it's normal.
I like the beach well enough, but prefer the mountains. Outside the Smokeys, the Appalachians are mostly gently rolling hills. The highest point in all of Georgia is lower than the highest point in LA city limits. There are true Alpine areas in the San Gabriels close to LA. It's the variety that puts LA over the top for me, but I understand that others really like the lush vegetation that comes from lots of rain. I think a lot of people that grow up in rainy areas don't like the starkness of the chapparal and desert.
I agree that LA has the worse air quality of the two. In fact, outside of the IE and Central Valley of California, LA has some of the worst air quality in the country. Still, it's almost pristine compared to some places I've lived in and traveled to overseas. There are definitely days where views of the mountains aren't as pretty, but otherwise air quality isn't a huge detriment to me.
Both have bad commutes, but acording to the Census ACS, timewise, the LA metro has the 17th longest commute. Atlanta spends the 8th most time commuting. The avg Atlanta commute is about 5 mins longer. The caveat here is the Census Bureau considers the IE a separate metro, and the avg IE commute is the 7th longest, about a minute longer than Atlanta. Still, if you combine them, so many more people live in the LA metro than the IE, the commute time for LA/IE is still shorter than Atlanta. LA traffic is terrible, but Atlanta is one of the few metros where commuting isn't better.
Yeah if mountains are your thing, then I get that. Personally it irks me that most of our hiking trails are either up and down a mountain or in a desert. I like the rolling hills and trees more.
I think that Atlanta's commutes are so long because they travel the farthest. If you adjust for distance traveled then our traffic is much worse. That may not be fair since Atlanta is more spread out, but I don't think that everyone has to live 20+ miles from work, but they seem to.
Somewhat, but the last sentence is nothing but a load of opinionated crap.
I think you are reading something into what I posted that isn't there. I'm not saying that those are the only groups that would prefer ATL, and I'm not saying that many people aren't perfectly happy living in LA from those groups. And I am certainly not saying that everyone or even the majority of people in ATL fall into those groups.
What I am saying is those are groups that tend to see a lot of negatives with LA from not having a huge influence. If you don't think conservatives complain about the LA metro a lot, go look at the LA forum. Probably a quarter of the posters are conservatives who left LA for Arizona or Nevada, but still come back to the forum to talk trash about LA all the time. Conservatives aren't so heavily outnumbered in the Atlanta metro.
Many African Americans complain that black influence in LA isn't as much as in other big cities, since the AA population is relatively small (9% of the city, 7% of the metro). African Americans are better represented in the Atlanta metro. There was that recent list posted on CD about metros that were best for African Americans (IIRC, from an economic opportunity or lowest disparity standpoint) and Atlanta was either #1 or somewhere near the top. The comment on black nightlife below, would also hold true for many other cultural aspects.
Southerners I threw in there because, as someone from the Gulf Coast, I meet tons of people from the Mid-Atlantic, West, and Midwest in LA, but not very many Southerners. If it was important to me to be around a lot of other Southerners, maybe for SEC Football, LA wouldn't be a great city.
If you disagree, or still think this is a load of "opinionated crap," explain why you disagree.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BrooklynJo
As a black american the only thing ATL offers me over ATL is a better black nightlife. Other than that LA wins easily if I had the money. I am a big fan of large cities and metro areas in general.
I think that Atlanta's commutes are so long because they travel the farthest. If you adjust for distance traveled then our traffic is much worse. That may not be fair since Atlanta is more spread out, but I don't think that everyone has to live 20+ miles from work, but they seem to.
Yeah, I would agree with that. LA has one of the biggest differences in freeway speeds between peak traffic and middle of the night. LA is always near the top of those time stuck in traffic list, which look at those differences in speed. Atlanta is always a top 10 city as well. I don't think either is a big winner as far as commuting:
Atlanta: Advantage- Traffic (bad, but not as bad as LA). Disadvantage- Distance of commute, time spent commuting ( a few minutes longer than LA).
LA: Advantage- Distance of commute, time spent commuting. Disadvantage- Traffic
Yeah if mountains are your thing, then I get that. Personally it irks me that most of our hiking trails are either up and down a mountain or in a desert. I like the rolling hills and trees more.
I think that Atlanta's commutes are so long because they travel the farthest. If you adjust for distance traveled then our traffic is much worse. That may not be fair since Atlanta is more spread out, but I don't think that everyone has to live 20+ miles from work, but they seem to.
People from the core Atlanta counties don't have a terrible commute (distance and time). Someone from the sticks in Henry, Rockdale, or even the city of Griffin have crazy commutes but Fulton, Dekalb or Clayton are okay.
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