Atlanta vs Dallas vs St. Louis (Alpharetta, Decatur: real estate, apartments, rentals)

[mjtinmemphis]

I have an opportunity to relocate from Memphis Tn. to Dallas, Atlanta or St. Louis. I am a single black male 35 looking for a city that is urban, green, clean and affordable. I will be renting for the first year to get accustomed to the area before buying a condo. My price range for rent is 700-800 per mo. I will be working from home however need a central location. I do prefer an urban lifestyle doesn’t have to be downtown but definitely urban, (walkable, transit friendly with diverse liberal population.)

I would like to hear from people that have experienced life in either of these cities to compare. It’s been 10 years since living in St. Louis. Visit Atlanta and Dallas 2 to 3 times a year but always as a visitor never thinking about relocating.

[xxman777]

Atlanta has some semi urban areas but they aren't very transit friendly and 700-800 is going to be tough. Midtown, Downtown and a couple of other small, specific areas (Decatur, Lindbergh) are the most transit friendly/urban but overall the city is extremely car oriented. As far as green, Atlanta is very green when it comes to color, lots and lots of trees, but not green at all when it comes to green energy. The buses do run on natural gas and there are limited HOV lanes (which are very poorly designed and not very well enforced) and a limited transit system but as a whole the region is doing very little to embrace alternative sources of energy.

[south-to-west]

You can find apartments between $700 and $800 in Creative Loafing, Atlanta's independent newspaper. A lot of these units are located in smaller apartment buildings throughout the city and many are nice and historic.

[atlantagreg30127]

Atlanta: Greener, overall more affordable (but prices are going up quickly), higher crime and insane traffic. MARTA (rail) hits the major hot spots but is somewhat stalled out as far as expansion goes, and you still need a car here for "everyday life" in my opinion. Condo prices are high for the new ones but in a couple of years they'll probably drop a lot as there are SO many going up I think they're going to oversaturate the market once they're all done. Apartments - you're really pushing it intown, but you MIGHT find a good studio or 1BR if you hunt around in that price range. Race relations here are not as much in harmony as some would have you believe, and there are even certain tensions between classes of blacks, but overall it's a "tolerant" city.

St. Louis: Insane crime. Traffic not really that bad. Greener place, too. Four distinct seasons (with snow in winter if you like it - you won't see much in the other two). Mediocre transit. Prices lower than Atlanta in the apartment industry - not sure about condos. Less prone to the crazy "sprawl" that Atlanta and Dallas have - feels more like a medium-sized manageable city as opposed to a smaller version of L.A.

Dallas: In some areas you'd think trees don't exist. It IS very sparse in some areas (green in others). Good and rapidly expanding light rail transit system (they're on top of this). Average crime for a city of that size, slightly above average traffic. Can get HOT HOT in the summer (more than Atlanta) and prone to bad storms (as in "big ass" tornadoes) in Spring/Summer. Average prices for larger city for apartments and condos (slightly lower than Atlanta, more than St. Louis).

Spin the wheel and take a pick. LOL. No clear answer. All of them have their strength and all have their weaknesses.

[tdatl]

I can comment a bit on atlantagreg30127's comments on StL vs. ATL because I've lived in those two. As far as crime, depends on where in the city you live -- both have among the highest crime rates in the country for the city itself, so that's a wash. It's all where you live in a city and how much common sense you use.

as far as apartments, it probably is true that Atlanta is more expensive now, but when I moved to Atlanta (Feb. 2003), the apartment market was so overbuilt that I was floored at how cheap it was -- much cheaper than I paid in suburban StL. I got a 2br place here in a new complex in Alpharetta for about $250 less than I was paying in StL. And the one here had a fireplace! I'm fairly sure it's tightened up significantly since, because friends who were in apartments this past year said their rents kept getting jacked up. This is suburban rents, btw. I'm guessing that it would be cheaper in the city proper of StL right now, simply because nobody wants to move there. They keep losing population by the year. Hard to believe that in 1950 it was the 4th largest city in the country...

As far as weather -- I think StL gets hotter than ATL in the summer, and it gets much colder in the winter. It's just nasty. ATL benefits from its elevation in the summer... yeah, it gets hot, but not StL hot.

in terms of an 'urban lifestyle,' i'd pick ATL any day over StL. StL is a smaller, more muted version of Detroit... would the last person leaving please turn out the lights? And ATL is still booming, lots of more urban development going on.

FWIW, I absolutely HATED StL. I honestly think I'd put a bullet thru my head if I had to go back. I too moved there for a job, and at least I learned an important lesson -- don't put your career above all when it comes to lifestyle choices. I do love ATL and plan on spending the rest of my life here. I pretty much cannot stand the entire state of Texas, so that's that.

[atlantagreg30127]

As a side-note, an interesting article about how rents are going UP in the larger markets now (including here): Rents rise as would-be buyers wait - Rentals - MSN Real Estate

[Philagirl]

"FWIW, I absolutely HATED StL. I honestly think I'd put a bullet thru my head if I had to go back. I too moved there for a job, and at least I learned an important lesson -- don't put your career above all when it comes to lifestyle choices. I do love ATL and plan on spending the rest of my life here. I pretty much cannot stand the entire state of Texas, so that's that."


This had me in stitches. I lived in St. Louis for two years a while back, and I have never hated a place more. The summers were far too hot, the winters were ridiculously cold, and it was one of the most segregated and racist cities I have ever encountered, and I have lived in many cities, including several in the south. I don't even want to DRIVE through that city again.

[tdatl]

I don't even want to DRIVE through that city again.

no doubt! As long as I can remember, I'd always heard about East St. Louis as one of the worst cities (crime, poverty, etc.) in the country, so I was curious to drive thru it. And wow! I felt like I was driving thru a war zone. It's hard to believe there are cities that run-down in the USA. And then another time I was riding my motorcycle over along IL 3 and I ended up in Brooklyn. I told a guy at work, and he said "Even the people in East StL are afraid to go into Brooklyn!" When I was there, the people in the village/city (I'm thinking it was Cahokia???) below EStL actually blocked off the road to keep crime out! The people in EStl threw a fit because they had to go there to go to shopping because they had no retail left. It was unreal.

And I remember an article in the paper saying at the rate they were tearing down buildings in the city of StL, there wouldn't be any high-rises left! Some of the suburbs are very nice, I'll give the area that. Places like Ladue, Clayton, Des Peres are very upscale, have great stores, vegetation, etc. and compare favorably to similar locales anywhere. But for me, just the entire metro was depressing.

[tdatl]

one more thing, mjtinmemphis -- the city of StL has its own income tax!! Naturally they exempt the professional sports teams so they won't leave the city for the suburbs, but everyone else working in the city pays.

[Juice13610]

tdatl; there are many more high rises being redeveloped to make in to retail/residential spaces in downtown St Louis than there are high rises being "torn down."