City living outside of Atlanta?

[Newsboy]

Originally Posted by magusat999

What your calling Suburban I'm calling rural. A house with a swimming pool in the backyard that has a fence, in a community of people who take care of their neighborhood is "Suburban" to me - a house, that might be nice, but has a backyard with no fence that leads to where Smokey the Bear lives, in an area that only has sidewalks where the houses are, is not "Suburban", I don't care how nice the area is - it's rural and countrified.

Whatever

[Tarzanman]

Originally Posted by magusat999

What your calling Suburban I'm calling rural. A house with a swimming pool in the backyard that has a fence, in a community of people who take care of their neighborhood is "Suburban" to me - a house, that might be nice, but has a backyard with no fence that leads to where Smokey the Bear lives, in an area that only has sidewalks where the houses are, is not "Suburban", I don't care how nice the area is - it's rural and countrified.

Your working definition doesn't make much sense when you take reality into account. However, even using your working definition the answer to your first question is no. The vast majority of areas within a 20 mile radius are very developed. Sewer lines, traffic lights, mass transit, etc... all the major trappings of modern developed populated towns and cities (though sidewalks are scarce in some of these areas).

There are areas with large tracts of undeveloped land within a 20 mile radius of the city, but almost none of these areas are easy to get to by just jumping on the highway, and few of them are left. The sprawl here is considerable. I would say that most 'rural' living is at least a 30 mile drive from the city.

[cqholt]

Originally Posted by Clayton white guy

Well there were reports of wolves in much of Northeast Atlanta a few years ago (Druid Hills, Virginia Highland, Morningside, etc) Perhaps everything even a block off of Peachtree Street is rural. How lovely: Atlanta, the best of the county AND the city ;0) Thank you Magusat999 for pointing out another wonder of Atlanta life.

We did have coyotes in Kirkwood last year.

[waronxmas]

Originally Posted by AnsleyPark

I lived in midtown. We had racoons and coyotes.

I've seen opossums in Manhattan, and deer in DC. Wildlife has a way of not stopping when the concrete begins. In fact, urban areas can be more enticing for certain type of animals that scavenge like coyotes of foxes.

[testa50]

To take a stab at the actual question:

Originally Posted by magusat999

Is all the living outside of Atlanta rural (or close to it)? Are there any developed cities outside of Atlanta - places that actually have sidewalk and you don't live with the forest breathing down your neck? If so, are there affordable cities or do you have to pay a premium to live in a walkable city environment? I'm not talking all of Georgia - I mean at most a 20 mile radius around Atlanta Metro.

This is the confusing part. Do you mean outside of the City of Atlanta but within the Atlanta metro, or outside of the developed part of the metro, or outside of the actual defined limits of the metro area?

Since the Atlanta metro area is massive, the distinction is important. Do you want an "urban lifestyle" in the Atlanta suburbs (rural as you call them), or outside of the Atlanta suburbs?

Either way, it's gonna be slim pickins. Decatur Square is the best best outside of the city proper, with a metro station and thriving downtown area, but it's basically universally thought to be "in the city".

Outside of the perimeter, I would say Marietta Square (as others have suggested), but it's far sleepier than a real urban environment. It has more of a busy-small-town feel if that makes sense. In the rest of metro Atlanta, the historic railroad downtowns mainly function as commercial nodes for dining and leisure rather than bonafide urban areas.

Athens, which strictly meets the "within 20 miles of metro Atlanta" definition these days, is the safest bet for an actual urban experience not in Atlanta. It's a 70 mile haul from downtown--not exactly close. But there's a good 50 miles worth of suburbs between the two, and the exurbs spread all the way from city to city these days.

Welcome to the South.