Californian finds much to love in Atlanta... (Roswell, Marietta: condos, living in)

[cwkimbro]

Originally Posted by aries4118

Atlanta is much more appealing and visitor-worthy than Birmingham. Everybody who is anybody knows this.

I kind of understand him, though.

It is a double-edge sword.

We were (still are) so successful for so long we dealt with an extreme degree growth, business growth, building.... rebuilding.

That brings many great things and amenities other places can't measure up to.

However, the other side to the sword is cities that weren't as successful, stayed smaller, and had smaller amounts of growth were able to retain many of their buildings and older town-like settings. Frequently less of their downtowns were built over for modern purposes that involved huge cement walls (thank you very much 1970s architecture).

There is charm in a downtown not being built over with more economically important purposes.

There are reasons Asheville, Athens, Savannah, Charleston, New Orleans, and Memphis can retain a certain old charm better than we can, yet we are far more successful than all of these places and have grown far beyond them and have amenities these places could never match.

So I totally get it. There are things I like about Birmingham too.



One thing I find interesting is how much people are starting to appreciate the town-style streets and old craftsman houses of the 30s-40s. When you have mega-growth successful area those types of properties might make up 3-5% of the housing stock and demand far outpaces supply creating huge costs. However, go to a smaller city and that type of housing stock might be 15% of the city and is far cheaper and easily obtainable to the average person.

Same can be applied to many parts of town. Sometimes it is just nice to get away and appreciate certain things when they are in less demand, easy, and well.... cheaper.

But still at the end of the day... there is a reality to life... people follow the money. They follow the success, the access, ... the jobs.

[bhammaster]

Originally Posted by aries4118

Atlanta is much more appealing and visitor-worthy than Birmingham. Everybody who is anybody knows this.

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

Yeah, you'd think, but I'm just telling you what people said.

I actually love visiting Birmingham because it's just so....so....FRIGGING EASY! It's easy to get everywhere, you don't need reservations to eat anywhere, and life is just....EASY. You decide to do something and then you go do it. No muss, no fuss.

My friend who I was talking about, who lives in LA, just messaged me yesterday because he was back in Birmingham visiting family for Easter. He said, "Birmingham is so strange that you can't help but like it." I think to a lot of people from California, Atlanta isn't much different from LA, but Birmingham is really unique to them.

The drink prices in Bham at bars ( or anywhere in Alabama) alone would be a shocker to a Californian, not to mention Bham is beating Atlanta out in the brewery department . Also yeah, it is easier to do just about anything there is to do in Bham compared to here.

[gold15]

Great article. I hope this is a typo:

"After the meal, we caught an Uber to the historic Fox Theatre in midtown Atlanta, which was about a 115-minute jaunt in the car."

After 17 years here, which at one time included a 27-mile commute on 85/285 from work to home, I have seen some horrible days of traffic. However, I can't remember it ever taking me 2 hours to get from any part of the metro to another. Some really bad one-off incidents may have pushed 1.5 hours. Downtown Decatur and the Fox just aren't that far apart (5.2 miles along Ponce).

[stillinthesouth]

Originally Posted by gold15

Great article. I hope this is a typo:

"After the meal, we caught an Uber to the historic Fox Theatre in midtown Atlanta, which was about a 115-minute jaunt in the car."

After 17 years here, which at one time included a 27-mile commute on 85/285 from work to home, I have seen some horrible days of traffic. However, I can't remember it ever taking me 2 hours to get from any part of the metro to another. Some really bad one-off incidents may have pushed 1.5 hours. Downtown Decatur and the Fox just aren't that far apart (5.2 miles along Ponce).

Yeah, that drive time from Decatur to Midtown jumped out at me too. I'm thinking it was a typo - she probably meant 15 minutes. I don't think she would have used the word "jaunt" if it was a 115-minute drive, more like "115-minute ordeal."

[Pemgin]

Originally Posted by bhammaster

Bham is beating Atlanta out in the brewery department .

This just isn't true.

[stillinthesouth]

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

Yeah, you'd think, but I'm just telling you what people said.

I actually love visiting Birmingham because it's just so....so....FRIGGING EASY! It's easy to get everywhere, you don't need reservations to eat anywhere, and life is just....EASY. You decide to do something and then you go do it. No muss, no fuss.

My friend who I was talking about, who lives in LA, just messaged me yesterday because he was back in Birmingham visiting family for Easter. He said, "Birmingham is so strange that you can't help but like it." I think to a lot of people from California, Atlanta isn't much different from LA, but Birmingham is really unique to them.

I liked Birmingham when I visited it for the first time last summer. It's kind of surprising how little Birmingham seems to be on the radar of Atlantans as a place to visit, but it is a nice place to go for an afternoon or even a weekend trip. Birmingham's downtown has great bones and will really be one of the better Southeast downtowns if they can fill up the vacant buildings. There's already a good amount of revitalization taking place.

Yeah, and it did strike me how easy everything is there compared to Atlanta. Very little traffic.

Seems like Birmingham still has a bad rep that it can't quite shake off, particularly with people from up north. When I mentioned to my brother that I was going to head to Birmingham for a concert he was like "Birmingham, why would you go there"? I tried to explain that it's a good place!

[bigup]

Originally Posted by bhammaster

The drink prices in Bham at bars ( or anywhere in Alabama) alone would be a shocker to a Californian, not to mention Bham is beating Atlanta out in the brewery department .

Do you mean in quality or sheer number of breweries? It would be hard to compete with the Atlanta metro area in terms of number, of course. And as for quality, well that's very subjective, so it's hard to say (the only beer I've seen for sale in Atlanta is stuff by Good People brewing). I'm planning a trip to Birmingham at the moment, so I'll just have to see for myself!

[bhammaster]

Originally Posted by Pemgin

This just isn't true.

Originally Posted by bigup

Do you mean in quality or sheer number of breweries? It would be hard to compete with the Atlanta metro area in terms of number, of course. And as for quality, well that's very subjective, so it's hard to say (the only beer I've seen for sale in Atlanta is stuff by Good People brewing). I'm planning a trip to Birmingham at the moment, so I'll just have to see for myself!

Atlanta has laws preventing breweries from selling their drinks in the establishment and selling to distributors at the same time. Birmingham does not, so this allows more variety in the scene there.

[bhammaster]

There is also no last call in Mobile or Bham and you can serve alcohol before 12 on Sundays. Combine that is the ease of doing everything and the charm and you have why visitors from much larger places would prefer Bham to Atlanta.

[ATLTJL]

Seems like Birmingham still has a bad rep that it can't quite shake off, particularly with people from up north. When I mentioned to my brother that I was going to head to Birmingham for a concert he was like "Birmingham, why would you go there"? I tried to explain that it's a good place!

This is my opinion from living there for years (though it was many years ago)...maybe others familiar with Birmingham can either back me up or dispute this.

In my eyes, this is not accidental. In fact, it's quite on purpose. Birmingham KNOWS it has this reputation and the city PURPOSELY DOES NOTHING to change it. Why????

Because Birmingham looks to Atlanta and says, "We don't want that to happen here." They don't want the traffic, they don't want the hustle, they don't want the hassle. So they purposely let everyone else thing what they're going to think and seem to relish living in one of the country's best kept secrets....which is that Birmingham is actually a really good place to live. You just have to be able to get over ridiculous politics (especially at the state level) and too much churchinees.

My biggest complaints was it was too hard to get items that you can find in big cities. But a healthier retail environment and Amazon pretty much solved that problem. I'd actually consider moving back there if I could find a great job. Honestly, the hardest thing to get used to would be the sun going down an hour earlier.