How "Cosmopolitan" Is Atlanta? (Columbus, Roswell: real estate, apartment, crime)

[atlantagreg30127]

Originally Posted by mg83

another trademark characteristic that many true international cities share is "tourism". Of course, the qualities I listed ultimately LEAD to tourism and people actually WANTING to visit...

Foreigners LOVE to visit New York, and Miami, and Chicago, and San Fran... but who comes here? I don't think I've ever met a foreigner taking "holiday" here to soak in the sites.

Even US citizens... are they honestly coming here on vacation?

Black Americans come here to visit the MLK sites and a few other sites or events. The convention attendees do not count as that's business. So correct - with the exception of one group of people, no, for the most part Atlanta is not a " vacation destination". It's typically seen as a place you drive through when going from NYC to Miami (or vice-verca), or connect to another flight in at the airport. It's a place to do business, and a place for black history - that's it.

The "New York of the South" bit is actually an OLD marketing ploy that some advertising agencies were using back when Atlanta had begun its rapid growth spurt in the late 70s and early 80s. I moved here in 1984 and the big ad campaign the city was using then involved a curly red-haired buxom woman in a sweater (and nothing else) who was holding a Peach to her lips, with the caption, "Move over Big Apple...". There were postcards, t-shirts, ads, etc. Their "New York of the South" thing was big back then. It fizzled out around the late 80s.

Today Atlanta is more commonly called the "L.A. of the East" due to the fact that in recent years it has sprawled in all directions, the traffic has increased as much as 300% in some areas since the 80s, air quality has gone down, etc... it much more closely resembles L.A. in those respects than New York. The ad agencies however do not use the L.A. comparison because L.A. still has a negative image due to these same things, and they don't want images like that for Atlanta (though they now are so similar).

Atlanta has always had an identity problem and keeps trying to compare itself to "someplace else" rather than just be "Atlanta" and improve the issues here that are the drawbacks. City leaders have always visited other (better) cities and done the, "we want that... and one of those..." things rather than try to figure out what ATLANTA needs the most - they just want the same things other cities have regardless of if we need that particular thing here or not. Maybe one day with a change of mentality / leadership, things will improve when Atlanta gets its own identity.

[ABM]

Kind of off-topic (am I entitled to that being the thread-starter? ), but what are your thoughts regarding the proposed beltway? Will that add another dimension of quasi-cultural "uniqueness" to the city?

[WestCobb]

Atlantagreg, thanks for providing some historical perspective on that. I was wondering why in the world Atlanta would compare itself to NYC. It's the result of a cheap advertising campaign, eh? That makes sense.. it couldn't possibly be because this city in any way resembles NYC whatsoever. And I agree, it is kind of like LA. I feel oddly at home here, but I have to say, it is prettier. It's green.. and that's nice. I might possibly be the only new transplant to this city that doesn't find the traffic too bad. I learned how to drive on LA freeways so this is a breeze. I also think Atlantans are exceedingly drivers.. reference is everything I suppose.

[atlantagreg30127]

Originally Posted by ABM

Kind of off-topic (am I entitled to that being the thread-starter? ), but what are your thoughts regarding the proposed beltway? Will that add another dimension of quasi-cultural "uniqueness" to the city?

If it were actually going to be built as planned I'd say it would be a start, but I seriously doubt it will go very far if you go by all other track records in the past. Some of it, small bits, will get put up here and there. But I seriously doubt that the finished product will resemble the plans you see advertised now.

[atlantagreg30127]

Originally Posted by WestCobb

I might possibly be the only new transplant to this city that doesn't find the traffic too bad. I learned how to drive on LA freeways so this is a breeze. I also think Atlantans are exceedingly drivers.. reference is everything I suppose.

Yeah, you'd have to be from L.A. or maybe DC or Mexico City or someplace like that to laugh at Atlanta's traffic. But that's one factor that sorta is what makes it bad here - the fact that so many people on the roads here are from completely different skill levels when it comes to driving in dense, fast, traffic. You have L.A. folks driving right alongside people from Raleigh, DC, then Cooter, Alabama. Doesn't always make for a great mix of drivers sharing the same lanes.

[PeteyNice]

Originally Posted by atlantagreg30127

It's typically seen as a place you drive through when going from NYC to Miami (or vice-verca), or connect to another flight in at the airport. It's a place to do business, and a place for black history - that's it.

Only Miss South Carolina would drive from Miami to New York via Atlanta

[ABM]

Originally Posted by PeteyNice

Only Miss South Carolina would drive from Miami to New York via Atlanta

Oh, my.

[BobKovacs]

Originally Posted by jjbradleynyc

It's really a ludicrous comparison. If people want to compare Atlanta to something in NYC, then Atlanta is a southern suburban New Jersey! That's actually more correct and the areas are similar. Jersey is more polluted than Atlanta, but it's a pretty good comparison.

Having grown up in NJ and lived there until last summer, I couldn't agree more. I really didn't see it when I first got here, but the more time I spend here, the more I see it. Downtown and midtown are around the same size, density and traffic scale as Newark and Jersey City- they don't even come close to Manhattan. Then you've got small commercial hubs like Galleria, Pill Hill, etc., that are similar to small office park areas like Bedminster and Parsippany. The in-town neighborhoods remind me alot of some of the central NJ towns like Westfield, Scotch Plains, and even Woodbridge. You've got the rougher areas like SWAT that are similar to New Brunswick or Elizabeth, and then you've got the semi-rural counties like Cherokee and Forsyth that are extremely similar to what places like Hunterdon County were 10-15 years ago, or Sussex County is now. It's almost scary.

To compare Atlanta to Manhattan in virtually any way is pretty laughable.

[south-to-west]

Atlanta is indeed a cosmopolitan city and for someone to argue otherwise is complete foolishness. Water and tourism don't make for a cosmopolitan city because if that were the case then Jacksonville or Tampa would be considered more cosmopolitan than Atlanta.

Atlanta is cosmopolitan for the following reasons:

-It's a large convention/business traveler destination. In fact it's a top 5 business destination here in the US. Yeah, they're not vacationers, but they are still people filling up our hotel rooms, eating at our restaurants, and even visiting some of our tourist sites.

-It's a center for pop culture. Despite what others say, rap that's produced in Atlanta is heard in Tokyo, Paris, London, Madrid, etc. When I lived in Barcelona people did listen to Ludacris, Outkast, TLC, Usher, Ciara, TI, etc. Hip hop and R&B is the top selling musical genre. If you don't like it personally--so what. Billions of people across the world buy and listen to music from ATLANTA artists.

-A large portion of the population is from somewhere else. People have come here from all over the world for better economic opportunity and quality of life; and they have brought aspects of their place of origin with them as well whether it's food, music, or festivity.

-Atlanta is growing more and more diverse--transending the traditional black/white makeup of the population. If you travel the Buford Highway, huge portions of DeKalb County, and Gwinnett County, you cannot refute this. There are large South Asian, Korean, Vietnamese, Hispanic, Carribean, and Brazilian communities in Atlanta. Also, there are a lot of British and other Europeans who have moved here.

-Atlanta is THE major transportation hub of the Southeast. This is true for air, rail, and roads. Atlanta is a major crossroads, which is why it has become the commerce and cultural center of the South. Goods, services, people, and ideas pass through here at a very high volume, only surpassed by a couple of other cities in the US.

-Atlanta has a multitude of world-class universities. In fact, some people have deemed Atlanta as being the Boston of the South given the large number of world-class universities in the area. Students come here from all over the world to study here and many stay.

Atlanta is no NYC or LA, but it IS the business and cultural center of the Southeast US--thus it is indeed cosmopolitan.

[plessthanpointohfive]

Not to mention that it's got offices for international corporations, etc. I would say THAT'S more an indicator of a city's international or cosmopolitan status than whether or not it's a tourist destination.

It used to be that in order to be a hub for international business you had to have a port (like NOLA or NYC). That's just not true any longer.

See this: http://www.metroatlantachamber.com/images/ht_international.pdf (broken link)

And since this was published Atlanta now has more than 2000 international businesses with offices here.

More than 80K people employed. This is no small matter.

And yes, it's silly to compare Atlanta to NYC. There's no city like NYC. But, Atlanta is a great city in it's own right.