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Old 12-03-2011, 08:57 AM
 
13,806 posts, read 9,655,340 times
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I think to a degree that American culture is a turnover based culture. I think that such is the product of our consumerism born from attempting to maximize earnings and GDP in capitalism. Hence, unless we are changing over to something different and new, we are programmed to feel we are missing out and less happy.

New relationships and new cities can be like chewing gum. You pop in a new stick to get the sugar high but after you chew awhile the sugar fades and you are just left with elastomers. When you are with something for a long time, you can’t get the newness high…..like you get when you are dating a new person or moving to a new city with new places, people and possible culture to explore.

Atlanta is essentially a “new” metropolitan area as the majority of the people and the area was built up in the last 30 years. Thus, it satisfies people’s desire to gravitate towards what’s new physically. By relocating to another area it satisfies people’s desire to meet new people and explore new places as well, assuming one is not forced to leave where they are from, due to hardship or company relocation.

However, after a certain period of time, as with relationships, you can often find that once the sugar is gone, once the newness is gone, that your previous relationship was just as good at its core. The saying is that grass often looks greener on the other side, until you get on the other side. Another saying is that you cannot have your cake and eat it too. The thing that make some places attractive to people are ruined by people when they try to consume it. When large number of people move to an area it changes the area….and often reduces the quality of life, via congestion, pollution, rudeness, expenses, ect. LA is a good example of that.

I guess now that I have turned into my 40’s that what I value is different. I tend to value things that are more sustainable at their core. I tend to be most concerned with family and quality of life, opportunities, time spent with children and the like. I no longer am looking for sugar highs. However, I can see how those still trying to get their high on would find pleasure in moving to Atlanta. In time however, the cycle will turn against the area like it has all others and people will be looking to move to the next mecca. My philosophy is to not buy what is TRENDY, but buy that which is "Classic" because classic is sustainable while trends are fleeting. I think once the sugar is gone from "Atlanta".....that the area does not have the NATURAL and CLASSIC ammenities to make it one of the better places to live.

Last edited by Indentured Servant; 12-03-2011 at 09:14 AM..

 
Old 12-03-2011, 09:09 AM
 
369 posts, read 655,588 times
Reputation: 229
Quote:
Originally Posted by BajanYankee View Post
Let's be fair now. How many middle-class blacks actually live in the city of Atlanta? Not Marietta. Not Conyers. I'm talking about Atlanta proper. I can only think of a few places. There's that neighborhood off of Cascade Road before you get to 285 (name escapes me). That's one. Really, that's the only one I can think of. Once you pass the Applebee's heading towards Fulton Industrial Blvd, you're in Fulton County incorporated, not the city of Atlanta. There was another neighborhood I'm forgetting (closer to 1-20), but that was mostly older families living in much older houses. Younger families are more likely to move to newer construction in Cobb or Douglas Counties. One more that comes to mind is near Greenbriar Mall. That's not many middle-class black neighborhoods.

So you're left with what? The rest of the SWATS (all around Lee Street and down Abernathy) is hood. The West End Mall was hood. Northside Drive was the hood. Metropolitan Ave was the hood. Bankhead was the hood. Much of Moreland Ave was hood. Vine City was the hood. Over near Boulevard was hood. Everything else (Collier Heights, Midtown, Buckhead) was white and affluent. So Atlanta's no different from any other city where the people moving in are young professionals (mostly white), the people moving out (or avoiding it all together) are young families, and the people left behind are poor minorities.

So I don't know why some pretend (not you specifically) that Atlanta is this land of milk and honey for black people. I witnessed black people living in some of the worst living conditions (psychological and physical) imaginable. I'm talking about seeing young mothers at the Marta station with all types of skin lesions and deformities (baby would have them too). You would think they grew up next to a power plant. I'm talking about rampant homelessness. I'm talking about pedophiles trying to approach children on the playground at my mentoring program when my back was turned. I'm talking about seeing APD drag a lady out of her house butt-naked kicking and screaming and then cuffing her on the ground. And that's what I saw over the course of just a few months! Atlanta may have nice suburbs, but the city can be downright depressing.

So I ask you: how is Atlanta so different from NYC?
Lol that reads pretty similar to the D.C. area.
 
Old 12-03-2011, 09:17 AM
 
369 posts, read 655,588 times
Reputation: 229
Quote:
Originally Posted by Indentured Servant View Post
I think to a degree that American culture is a turnover based culture. I think that such is the product of our consumerism born from attempting to maximize earnings and GDP in capitalism. Hence, unless we are changing over to something different and new, we are programmed to feel we are missing out and less happy.

New relationships and new cities can be like chewing gum. You pop in a new stick to get the sugar high but after you chew awhile the sugar fades and you are just left with elastomers. When you are with something for a long time, you can’t get the newness high…..like you get when you are dating a new person or moving to a new city with new places, people and possible culture to explore.

Atlanta is essentially a “new” metropolitan area as the majority of the people and the area was built up in the last 30 years. Thus, it satisfies people’s desire to gravitate towards what’s new physically. By relocating to another area it satisfies people’s desire to meet new people and explore new places as well, assuming one is not forced to leave where they are from, due to hardship or company relocation.

However, after a certain period of time, as with relationships, you can often find that once the sugar is gone, once the newness is gone, that your previous relationship was just as good at its core. The saying is that grass often looks greener on the other side, until you get on the other side. Another saying is that you cannot have your cake and eat it too. The thing that make some places attractive to people are ruined by people when they try to consume it. When large number of people move to an area it changes the area….and often reduces the quality of life, via congestion, pollution, rudeness, expenses, ect. LA is a good example of that.

I guess now that I have turned into my 40’s that what I value is different. I tend to value things that are more sustainable at their core. I tend to be most concerned with family and quality of life, opportunities, time spent with children and the like. I no longer am looking for sugar highs. However, I can see how those still trying to get their high on would find pleasure in moving to Atlanta. In time however, the cycle will turn against the area like it has all others and people will be looking to move to the next mecca. My philosophy is to not buy what is TRENDY, but buy that which is "Classic" because classic is sustainable while trends are fleeting. I think once the sugar is gone from "Atlanta".....that the area does not have the NATURAL and CLASSIC ammenities to make it one of the better places to live.
Well said but this world is too big and interesting to stay in one place. Humans are curious explorers by nature. Waterfronts and mountains have not kept cities from going into decline. That being said Georgia and Atlanta are at least aware of any issues they have and try to address them and surprisingly that is not common of many states. It really comes down to the people, because cities are a Human phenomenon.
 
Old 12-03-2011, 09:24 AM
 
Location: Atlanta, GA
1,490 posts, read 2,091,214 times
Reputation: 1697
Quote:
Originally Posted by BajanYankee View Post
You know I spent a semester down there, right?

Here's a sample of some of the ridiculousness I've seen down there:

1. Cars with "spinners" and Gucci/Louis paint rolling down Peachtree Street with trunk-rattling bass. Five Points to Midtown was nothing but a parade of pimped out vehicles with scantily-clad girls dancing through the moonroof. This would be the case every Friday night.

2. LOTS of gold fronts. I don't think I've ever seen more gold teeth in my life.

3. Grown men wearing basketball jerseys EVERYWHERE. Throwbacks may have started in Philly, but Atlanta took them to a whole new level.

4. Guy in Cadillac Escalade throwing money from his windows onto Peachtree while sitting in traffic. I've never seen more Escalades, Navigators and Suburbans in my life. I think "spinners" were standard issue.

5. Morris Brown and CAU students making every effort to live up to the image of black colleges portrayed on BET's College Hill.

6. All-Star Weekend/Player's Ball. Nuff said.

7. Went to a "professional" event down there where the DJ figured Travis Porter's "All the Way Turned Up" would be appropriate.

8. Wet Willie's? Seriously?

9. Bouldercrest Mall? Whoa.

10. "Aye, aye, shawty!"

If that's not living a rap video, I don't know what is. There's a level of gaudiness down there that can only be matched by Detroit. P.G. County has some of that, but it's not nearly as pervasive, and for the most part the hood crowd and the buppie crowd are pretty separate (Bus Boys & Poets is a good example). Not so in Atlanta. You could be wearing a blazer with nice shoes at a nice bar and then some dudes stroll in with matching UNC Tarheels outfits.

DC is BY FAR a classier and more cosmopolitan scene. Atlanta's better if you're young (18-22), into the "industry," or married and want a cheap, big house with a lot of land to raise a family. For the mid 20s to early 30s crowd, I think DC and NYC have a much greater range of options.

Bouldercrest Mall? Stop making stuff up fam, this "Bouldercrest Mall" you speak of doesn't exist. And since you want to talk about cars, black dudes in DC and the DMV as a whole ride the hell out of Crown Victorias in 2011, something we played out here 5 years ago. And Spinners? You sound foolish right now. Seriously.
 
Old 12-03-2011, 09:38 AM
 
Location: Atlanta, GA
1,490 posts, read 2,091,214 times
Reputation: 1697
Quote:
Originally Posted by Indentured Servant View Post
When I think of Atlanta I think of scrip cubs, shawwty, what my name iz, gold teeth, what time it iz, case quarter, krunk, baa ball games, go scrait (don't turn), rappers with no lyrical skills, colleg pahk, Bankhead, waffle house and skyscrapers a far distance from each other....lol.

Just kidding....kind of...that was for tonygeorgia.
When I think of Detroit I think about burned out blocks and houses, dudes wearing fake Cartier glasses (10 years after they went out of style might I add), people smoking ganz weed calling it high grade when its really just Canadian mid grade, ugly women, dudes running scams at the casinos, blind pigs with burned out old heads who always talk about "their glory days", ugly women, dudes walking around with ink lines in their and beards, ugly women, I mean I could go on for days. Detroit is so run down thre are still streets up there where you can see the tank tracks in the pavement from when the riots happened-and the riots happened almost 50 years ago. Detroit is a dump, plain and simple. It's like a bigger version of Gary Indiana.
 
Old 12-03-2011, 09:50 AM
 
13,806 posts, read 9,655,340 times
Reputation: 5243
Quote:
Originally Posted by readyset View Post
Well said but this world is too big and interesting to stay in one place. Humans are curious explorers by nature. Waterfronts and mountains have not kept cities from going into decline. That being said Georgia and Atlanta are at least aware of any issues they have and try to address them and surprisingly that is not common of many states. It really comes down to the people, because cities are a Human phenomenon.
Well....we are embarking upon a new era of scarcity. Not only will petro become more scarce, but so will fresh water, topsoil and other ingrediants that have allowed for our modern choices and urban sprawl. These are not changes that are going to manifest 50 years from now, but rather, in a decade or less, given global population growth and demand for these resources.

In light of that, humans will have to go back to more sustainable models of human settlement patterns, which almost always includes close proximity to large bodies of water. There have already been studies done that note 10 sunbelt cities, including Atlanta, that are currently threatened or soon to be threatened by water sustainability issues. This is not related to the somewhat debunked "global warming" issue, but rather, measurments from aquifiers and bodies of water that supply metropolitan areas in several states. Thus, many cities with certain natural ammenities, like water, actually did experience decline, during the era of abundance, however, these areas will be more sustainable for future realities.
 
Old 12-03-2011, 09:53 AM
 
Location: Crooklyn, New York
31,938 posts, read 34,468,012 times
Reputation: 15007
Quote:
Originally Posted by readyset View Post
You're full of ish or you've been hanging around crackheads (or a bunch of NY transplants that couldn't cut it there and thought D.C. would be easier for them to push around WRONG!).
You do realize that Atlanta is like a poor man's New York, right? Atlanta is full of NYC transplants. Your last mayor was a Philly girl.

Quote:
Originally Posted by readyset View Post
I don't even know why you're comparing a core city to a county. Prince George's and Atlanta are not the same. Obviously a better comparison would be DeKalb, and Prince George's has places like National Harbor and Bowie, Upper Marlboro, Ft. Washington areas are pretty well-to-do and which comprise of 70% of the county land. Largo area is not bad either considering it got the first Wegmans in the Maryland National Capital Region (there's no Wegmans in D.C. or Montgomery County)
I was talking about Atlanta generally rather than Atlanta city proper. That's because you guys don't have iron-clad distinctions between the city and the metro area like NYC (or even DC) does. When people say, "New York City," that excludes NJ, LI, and CT. But when people say "Atlanta," that does not implicitly exclude Lithonia, Norcross and College Park.

Quote:
Originally Posted by readyset View Post
You make it seem like there's this huge buppie class in D.C. proper lol, please, most of the Blacks in D.C. proper live in crappy areas like Anacostia, and parts of NE and SE.
When did I ever say DC didn't have poor people? I did say that DC (perhaps in other threads) has more buppies than Atlanta. And that's because there are simply more jobs here (especially jobs that require a Master's Degree or above). There are more IT firms in the area. More law firms in the area. Howard produces more black doctors and dentists than any other school in the U.S. and naturally many of its graduates stay local. There are way more think tanks here. More NGOs. Then you have the Congressional Black Caucus and its various advocacy group offshoots like the PLI, the CBCF and the CBCI. Then every major investment institution has a presence here (whether it's operational or just a lobbying group). I almost forgot to mention the diplomatic presence. All those people working in the Barbadian, Jamaican, Trinidadian, Nigerian, and the South African embassies are virtually all black. There's also the huge media presence with the Washington Post, Reuters, the AP and the New York Times. There are just way more "knowledge" jobs in DC and the black people qualified to fill them are way more likely to move to DC over Atlanta.

Then there are the Mary Jenkins of the world who work as secretaries for law firms or the government and make $80K a year. Her husband has some GS-12/13 job at Labor and makes around $90K. This is the typical household living in Prince George's County. There are some some doctors and the like in P.G. County, but they mostly end up in Silver Spring because the schools in PG suck balls.

In summary, DC has way more of the first group than Atlanta does. With regard to the second group, the numbers are probably about the same. Both cities have a large black underclass.

The only city that's really more dynamic than DC (from the black perspective) is NYC. You really will catch two black ballet dancers coming from practice speaking Swedish to each other.

Last edited by BajanYankee; 12-03-2011 at 10:06 AM..
 
Old 12-03-2011, 09:57 AM
 
369 posts, read 655,588 times
Reputation: 229
Quote:
Originally Posted by Indentured Servant View Post
Well....we are embarking upon a new era of scarcity. Not only will petro become more scarce, but so will fresh water, topsoil and other ingrediants that have allowed for our modern choices and urban sprawl. These are not changes that are going to manifest 50 years from now, but rather, in a decade or less, given global population growth and demand for these resources.

In light of that, humans will have to go back to more sustainable models of human settlement patterns, which almost always includes close proximity to large bodies of water. There have already been studies done that note 10 sunbelt cities, including Atlanta, that are currently threatened or soon to be threatened by water sustainability issues. This is not related to the somewhat debunked "global warming" issue, but rather, measurments from aquifiers and bodies of water that supply metropolitan areas in several states. Thus, many cities with certain natural ammenities, like water, actually did experience decline, during the era of abundance, however, these areas will be more sustainable for future realities.
That's a possibility but I think Atlanta is in less danger than Phoenix, Arizona or even Dallas when it comes to that. I actually think MARTA will be so much more important than anyone one realized if we are truly heading towards a sustainable future. Atlanta's geography should also make train transport more important if we are cutting back.
 
Old 12-03-2011, 10:05 AM
 
13,806 posts, read 9,655,340 times
Reputation: 5243
Quote:
Originally Posted by oldschoolChevy View Post
When I think of Detroit I think about burned out blocks and houses, dudes wearing fake Cartier glasses (10 years after they went out of style might I add), people smoking ganz weed calling it high grade when its really just Canadian mid grade, ugly women, dudes running scams at the casinos, blind pigs with burned out old heads who always talk about "their glory days", ugly women, dudes walking around with ink lines in their and beards, ugly women, I mean I could go on for days. Detroit is so run down thre are still streets up there where you can see the tank tracks in the pavement from when the riots happened-and the riots happened almost 50 years ago. Detroit is a dump, plain and simple. It's like a bigger version of Gary Indiana.
Yep....a lot of that is true and that is the perception that a lot of people have of Detroit. However, the things I am talking about for Atlanta is true for the suburbs, as well as, the city proper.....lol. The greater metropolitan area is about 7,000 square miles. The city, proper, of Detroit is about 135 square, miles (same as Altanta...by the way...and even after losing over half the population from the city.....its STILL has way more people than the city of Atlanta).

.......and those ugly women......they all moved to the ATL to get they freak on....lol.
 
Old 12-03-2011, 10:14 AM
 
Location: Atlanta, GA
1,490 posts, read 2,091,214 times
Reputation: 1697
Quote:
Originally Posted by Indentured Servant View Post
Yep....a lot of that is true and that is the perception that a lot of people have of Detroit. However, the things I am talking about for Atlanta is true for the suburbs, as well as, the city proper.....lol. The greater metropolitan area is about 7,000 square miles. The city, proper, of Detroit is about 135 square, miles (same as Altanta...by the way...and even after losing over half the population from the city.....its STILL has way more people than the city of Atlanta).

.......and those ugly women......they all moved to the ATL to get they freak on....lol.
So what Detroit has a bigger population, what do you want a cookie or something?

Yeah and those ugly women get no play here either, If I had a dollar for every chick I knew who moved here from some other city where she was the baddest thing around, only to move here and be depressed because she doesn't get play here because as Atlanta standards go she really isn't bad. Detroit chicks are burned out, only thing they're good for is hiding some dope boy's stash and driving whatever brand new Chevy Impala or Pontiac Grand Prix that comes out. And that was tongue and cheek but there is a lot of truth to that.
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