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Old 09-22-2012, 10:37 AM
 
Location: Atlanta & NYC
6,616 posts, read 13,839,514 times
Reputation: 6664

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Quote:
Originally Posted by R1070 View Post
T & L always rags on southern cities. If you ever notice in their lists, Dallas always gets ranked near the worst of everything. They say it's their readers doing the rankings, which may or may not be true, but it seems apparent that their readers are not familiar with cities in the Southern half of the country. I don't ever pay attention to these lists. I think Atlanta and Dallas are two of the nicest cities in the country.
I've never been to Dallas but I like living in Atlanta because there isn't trash thrown everywhere like in NY lol. I am a NYer though so perhaps my opinion doesn't matter.
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Old 09-22-2012, 10:38 AM
 
5,390 posts, read 9,702,943 times
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I dont even live in Atlanta or have any real connections in Atlanta except for when I travel there for business and work....and never once thought "oh my, this city is dirty"... It's fine. It's a decently clean city IMO.

I mean, I guess it gets smoggy, but so do lots of other cities. Um, where is Philadelphia on that list? They cant be serious and think that Philly is cleaner than Atlanta. OMG. so dumb
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Old 09-22-2012, 11:10 AM
 
52 posts, read 103,441 times
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Sometimes I think the downtown core can be rank, but what downtown isn't? I never got the impression that it's really dirty here, but maybe my perception is distorted since I'm from Cleveland. NY is way more dirty, but I think they get a pass just because of the population density.
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Old 09-23-2012, 07:35 AM
 
6,568 posts, read 12,070,061 times
Reputation: 5256
Quote:
Originally Posted by R1070 View Post
T & L always rags on southern cities. If you ever notice in their lists, Dallas always gets ranked near the worst of everything. They say it's their readers doing the rankings, which may or may not be true, but it seems apparent that their readers are not familiar with cities in the Southern half of the country. I don't ever pay attention to these lists. I think Atlanta and Dallas are two of the nicest cities in the country.
I stopped taking T & L seriously when it ranked Atlanta low for nightlife, dining, and shopping; things that Atlanta is know to have some of the best of.
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Old 09-23-2012, 10:34 AM
 
32,031 posts, read 36,818,852 times
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I have to admit the ATL has got some really grungy areas, where trash is strewn all over the place. For the life of me I have never understood why folks would want their neighborhood to look that way. I guess you get to a point where you just don't care.
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Old 09-23-2012, 12:50 PM
 
9,008 posts, read 14,067,750 times
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Do you think, though, that trash is the only thing that gives a city a feeling of being dirty?

Maybe it's things like the train tracks, stains on concrete sidings, the disrepair of the roads, sidewalks that are uneven, grafitti and things like that which contribute.

I mean, think about like the Krog Street tunnel and the stuff around it. It may not have any actual refuse lying about, but most people would look at it and think it is quite dirty. Maybe that's the definition that was used.
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Old 09-23-2012, 01:26 PM
 
32,031 posts, read 36,818,852 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ATLTJL View Post
Maybe it's things like the train tracks, stains on concrete sidings, the disrepair of the roads, sidewalks that are uneven, grafitti and things like that which contribute.

I mean, think about like the Krog Street tunnel and the stuff around it. It may not have any actual refuse lying about, but most people would look at it and think it is quite dirty. Maybe that's the definition that was used.
Well, those things could be factor. We've got a lot of concrete in this town and it often looks gray and weathered.

Obviously this is sort of a BS survey but if they are basing it on feedback from travelers, I'd have to think the area around the Five Points MARTA station and Underground Atlanta contributes to negative impressions. Those junk vendors who hang out in front the station give a really skanky appearance to the area. The Five Points area is not what most people are probably expecting to see as the core of a major city.

However, there are also several major streets where paper and other debris is scattered all around. I don't understand it. If I'm walking down the street and I see trash, I pick it up. Apparently a lot of folks don't.
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Old 09-23-2012, 03:02 PM
 
37,894 posts, read 42,008,814 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ATLTJL View Post
My own personal perspective is the aggressive nature of panhandling, and I think if we can get a lid on that, we can do wonders in improving the perception of safety. Even if the danger associated with it is minimal, the perception of danger matters. It matters a lot.

...It is worth mentioning that even though Atlanta is viewed as dirty and dangerous, tourism is up.
I do agree that the panhandling/vagrant issue is probably the primary source of the perception and I think this directly correlates with the increase in tourism. The core of downtown Atlanta has got to get cleaned up, plain and simple.

Quote:
Originally Posted by R1070 View Post
T & L always rags on southern cities. If you ever notice in their lists, Dallas always gets ranked near the worst of everything. They say it's their readers doing the rankings, which may or may not be true, but it seems apparent that their readers are not familiar with cities in the Southern half of the country. I don't ever pay attention to these lists. I think Atlanta and Dallas are two of the nicest cities in the country.
T&L might rag on Dallas, but that's not because of a bias against Southern cities. Charleston and Savannah are always making their "best of" lists.

Quote:
Originally Posted by devin1229 View Post
Sometimes I think the downtown core can be rank, but what downtown isn't?
I can think of a couple that aren't. Downtown Atlanta isn't an anomaly, but it's not representative of the typical big city downtown in the U.S. either.
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Old 09-24-2012, 07:19 AM
 
16,212 posts, read 10,835,033 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DTL3000 View Post
Parts of Atlanta are pretty trashy compared to other cities I've lived in. NYC produces way more trash than Atlanta and it can pile up during the day but it gets addressed on a daily basis. The front yard of my last place in East Atlanta was a trash dump for patrons of the McD's, Wendys, Krystal, etc. next door. A lot of people in Atlanta just have no shame or respect for others and the environment to put it bluntly. It's downright ignorant behavior and while I'm sure someone will say this sort of thing happens everywhere, I'd say Atlanta is far worse than average in this regard.

Huge piles of trash regularly sit for weeks or more in certain areas of Atlanta. I think it all boils down to code enforcement which Atlanta city govt seems to have a difficult time doing. Fine the hell out of who ever owns the lot the trash is sitting on or in front of until they take action to prevent it from piling up. Do something about abandoned, grafitti'ed up houses and overgrown lots and sidewalks. I mean hell, I thought I was gonna need a machete on a certain stretch of Moreland sidewalk near I-20 when I was back in town a couple weeks ago.
Actually I agree with this.

One of my biggest gripes about Atlanta is how dirty and unkempt it looks and I'm from the Midwest and even lived in poor neighborhoods up there and none of our neighborhoods looked as bad as some "nicer" neighborhoods of Atlanta.

I also think it has to do with the lack of code enforcement here. No matter what the mayor says, he's not doing anything different with code enforcement than what was done it the past - putting stickers on houses and fining absent owners who don't care and aren't going to fix whatever it is needs to be fixed.

I think that the majority of downtown is clean though, which is what most travelers see, they have a dedicated "clean team" for downtown and I don't think I have ever seen lots of trash or too many weeds growing out of the sidwalks or curbs downtown. The city knows that's what most visitor's see and so there is a lot of attention placed on cleanliness here IMO.

Also as a person who lives in a neighborhood that does have a lot of trash and abandoned houses, I will say that people who actually have houses here do take care of our yards. When there are a lot of vacant homes, it will look trashy regardless as there is no one taking care of those houses and they can make the whole neighborhood look bad. We have a committee now that goes around and cleans out overgrown yards, but it can take hours to do one yard and it will be overgrown again in a few weeks while they're working on another yard, it is just never ending. There needs to be a crack down by the city in regards to code violations IMO. Where I am from, the city will come and cut the grass and if they have to do it twice, they will take that home and sell it to the lowest bidder almost immediately. This whole process is just too slow here. Even though the abandoned house next to me is not in good shape, we do mow the lawn regularly and keep the yard clean so our house won't look bad next to it. We would like to purchase the house, it has about 3 code violation stickers on it due to a broken window, my husband has had to run people out of it and I dread this winter as I know more people will come, probably homeless looking for somewhere to get out of the cold. The city said we could buy the lean on the house, but that was no guarantee that we would own it and that the process could be drawn out for 10 years, which is pretty dumb IMO. But people do care about the trash, I personally pick up the trash on my own block and the two other blocks close to mine because I don't like looking at trash. When I left for work this morning someone had thrown a bunch of papers in the street across the street from my house, so after work, I'll take my kids an we'll go pick it up. Unfortunately, picking up all the trash on streets around here is a full time job. I don't have time to dedicate 4 hours a day picking it up.

I also do think it is the class of people though who litter and also who abandon homes without care. This whole phenomenon is just something that I have never gotten used to in Atlanta. Also the attitude of people in the city who don't think that the way the WHOLE city looks is a reflection of all the residents. My MIL in Chicago lives in a worse neighborhood crimewise versus where I live and her neighborhood is immaculately clean, so I think the mindset of the people comes into play as well. And for those who will get all offended, you really shouldn't, that is just my opinion similar to the article being opinion in the OP. But I do know a lot of people who share the same opinion and one of the things people have mentioned to me when I drive them around Atlanta, people from out of town, is that it does not look neat - mostly the overgrown weeds everywhere in summer especially on curbs and on the sides of major roads, then next comes the trash and how it is just strewn about it a lot of areas. And FWIW, usually we don't even go to my own neighborhood and just go to more touristy places (The King Center/Auburn Ave, the zoo, the Fernbank, downtown, Coca-Cola, Midtown, etc, you have to drive through ugly places that are trashy just to get to most of these attractions, unless you stick to freeways, of which I try to avoid so maybe that is the problem in regards to me beinga tour guide). The neighborhood that gets lots of "ohs" and "awes" are when we are on our way to Decatur after going to the Fernbank and go down Moreland past Ponce and I get asked if we are now out of Atlanta lol.
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Old 09-24-2012, 09:02 AM
 
Location: West Cobb County, GA (Atlanta metro)
9,191 posts, read 33,902,064 times
Reputation: 5311
Yahoo travel has repeated the posting today: America , and along with the "dirty" distinction, it also adds that apparently those who took the poll feel very unsafe in the city as well.

It's all relative. Atlanta has it's share of problems like any other large city. Some of our problems are larger than they need to be. Others aren't as bad as those other cities have. Some cities are cleaner, safer, while others make us look like Disney World in comparison. Each city has strengths and weaknesses, and it also depends on who's eyes are viewing it as well as to the reputation it has.
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