Young professional mom looking to relocate (Atlanta, Sandy Springs: apartments, rental, townhomes)

[misssundecided]

Hello everyone,

This is my first post ever, so please bear with me.

I am 20-something, mother of 2 (one toddler, one school age) possibly looking to move to Atlanta. I've been researching quite a bit, but am having a hard time narrowing it down. We are moving simply because I am tired of where we live now (PDX). It's overly expensive, there's homeless camps EVERYWHERE, schools suck, there's zero diversity, zero nightlife, no kid-friendly entertainment and the list goes on. I have no intentions on raising my kids here and am looking to settle down somewhere soon. I have considered other cities such as Chicago and Sarasota, FL. but prefer Atlanta due to it's affordability, diversity and weather.

I've been looking into Sandy Springs, Buckhead, Alpharetta and Peachtree City. I'll be able to keep my current job and work remotely, so commuting won't be an issue. As for budget, I'm hoping to pay around $3000 for a nice 3-bedroom town home or apartment. (The more money I can save, the better).


What I'm looking for:
1. Safe - As it's just going to be me and my kiddos, I need a relatively safe community.

2. Diversity - We are African-american and coming from somewhere with zero diversity.

3. Good public schools - This is an absolute must. I pay far too much for private school/preschool now, simply because the schools here are horrible. I would love to be able to send my kids to a quality public school.

4. Walkability - I would like to be somewhere that's at least somewhat urban- where I could walk a couple blocks to the store, coffee, etc. It seems like these areas are more spread-out suburbs? Any insight on that would be great.


Thank you for your time!

[Need4Camaro]

Originally Posted by misssundecided

Hello everyone,

This is my first post ever, so please bear with me.

I am 20-something, mother of 2 (one toddler, one school age) possibly looking to move to Atlanta. I've been researching quite a bit, but am having a hard time narrowing it down. We are moving simply because I am tired of where we live now (PDX). It's overly expensive, there's homeless camps EVERYWHERE, schools suck, there's zero diversity, zero nightlife, no kid-friendly entertainment and the list goes on. I have no intentions on raising my kids here and am looking to settle down somewhere soon. I have considered other cities such as Chicago and Sarasota, FL. but prefer Atlanta due to it's affordability, diversity and weather.

I've been looking into Sandy Springs, Buckhead, Alpharetta and Peachtree City. I'll be able to keep my current job and work remotely, so commuting won't be an issue. As for budget, I'm hoping to pay around $3000 for a nice 3-bedroom town home or apartment. (The more money I can save, the better).


What I'm looking for:
1. Safe - As it's just going to be me and my kiddos, I need a relatively safe community.

2. Diversity - We are African-american and coming from somewhere with zero diversity.

3. Good public schools - This is an absolute must. I pay far too much for private school/preschool now, simply because the schools here are horrible. I would love to be able to send my kids to a quality public school.

4. Walkability - I would like to be somewhere that's at least somewhat urban- where I could walk a couple blocks to the store, coffee, etc. It seems like these areas are more spread-out suburbs? Any insight on that would be great.


Thank you for your time!

I think per your choices, Sandy Springs and I'd also consider Brookhaven. Both will be near MARTA rail which will assist you in getting downtown and everything MARTA rail encompasses. Buckhead does as well but I'm not 100% sure if you will beable to get a townhome under $3k a month there. Alpharetta, you can but there's no rail and it's not really that walkable. There's walkable sections in Alpharetta such as Avalon and Downtown Alpharetta and they are excellent places but you will pretty much need a car to get to them.

[Citykid3785]

Brookhaven
Sandy springs
Dunwoody
Chastain park
Decatur
Marietta

[citidata18]

As someone who's also young professional African-American in their 20s and lives one town over from Peachtree City, it is a fine place, but I would strongly suggest ruling it out for a number of reasons.

1. It's far away from all of the corporate job hubs north of I-20 (Cumberland, Perimeter Center, Alpharetta, Midtown, Buckhead, etc.). The only major corporate employer South of Atlanta is Delta, which (as we all know) is a hot mess due to COVID. So if you wanted to job hop or job security became an issue, you'll have an extremely hard time finding a new job.

It will also be extremely difficult to find other professionals your age to network with. Peachtree City is "affluent, but working class" if that makes sense, as it's primarily a bedroom community for very well paid Delta pilots and mechanics because of how close it is to the airport.

2. It's a nice place if you're settled down and want to raise a family or a retiree, but that's about it. Unless your idea of entertainment and night life is going to run-of-the-mill chain restaurants (talking Outback Steakhouse, Carraba's or Chili's run-of-the-mill) or the movies, you're going to be bored out of your mind.

3. It's about as generic suburbia as you can get. It has no walkable town squares, no transit what so ever (at least Sandy Springs and Buckhead are served by MARTA) and everything's in a strip mall or subdivision. It does have the Golf Cart paths though.

4. Peachtree City has had a long standing moratorium on new multi-family units (I'll leave you to figure out some of the reasons why), so the few townhomes and apartments that do exist were not only cheaply built but are also fairly old.

5. While it is one of the wealthier cities in Metro Atlanta, Peachtreee City is 90% white (and only 4% black) while Fayette County is 80% (and only 13% black). It has a small Asian population as well (4%), but overall, the population is pretty homogeneous.

[Need4Camaro]

Given she’s remote PTC won’t be too bad but I too would go for Sandy Springs / Dunwoody / Brookhaven if she’s looking for walk ability. If she’s more open on the walkability then I would go for Alpharetta, Marietta, Smyrna or look into Vinings.

[Yoski]

Originally Posted by citidata18

As someone who's also young professional African-American in their 20s and lives one town over from Peachtree City, it is a fine place, but I would strongly suggest ruling it out for a number of reasons.

1. It's far away from all of the corporate job hubs north of I-20 (Cumberland, Perimeter Center, Alpharetta, Midtown, Buckhead, etc.). The only major corporate employer South of Atlanta is Delta, which (as we all know) is a hot mess due to COVID. So if you wanted to job hop or job security became an issue, you'll have an extremely hard time finding a new job.

It will also be extremely difficult to find other professionals your age to network with. Peachtree City is "affluent, but working class" if that makes sense, as it's primarily a bedroom community for very well paid Delta pilots and mechanics because of how close it is to the airport.

2. It's a nice place if you're settled down and want to raise a family or a retiree, but that's about it. Unless your idea of entertainment and night life is going to run-of-the-mill chain restaurants (talking Outback Steakhouse, Carraba's or Chili's run-of-the-mill) or the movies, you're going to be bored out of your mind.

3. It's about as generic suburbia as you can get. It has no walkable town squares, no transit what so ever (at least Sandy Springs and Buckhead are served by MARTA) and everything's in a strip mall or subdivision. It does have the Golf Cart paths though.

4. Peachtree City has had a long standing moratorium on new multi-family units (I'll leave you to figure out some of the reasons why), so the few townhomes and apartments that do exist were not only cheaply built but are also fairly old.

5. While it is one of the wealthier cities in Metro Atlanta, Peachtreee City is 90% white (and only 4% black) while Fayette County is 80% (and only 13% black). It has a small Asian population as well (4%), but overall, the population is pretty homogeneous.

As a black middle-age resident of Peachtree City with family, this is pretty much on point, but from my experience, there aren't many better places to raise kids. My kids range in age from toddler to high school kids.

I will say don't let the diversity numbers fool you. You will find the schools and shopping areas to reflect a much greater diversity than the numbers above would lead you to believe. The public schools are amongst the best in the state.

Also, though it doesn't have a town square per say, just village centers with standard stores and restaurants, PTC is as walkable as you can get due to the multi-use paths. They will take you to wherever you want to go from one end of the city to the other. Depending on how far away you are from the village centers, walking could take you a bit of time, but since you can almost completely avoid roads and car traffic, bicycles are perfect.

There is no nightlife here to speak of, but plenty of family activity, especially outdoor to include pools, lakes, parks, skate centers, bmx track, etc. The combination of outdoor activities, multi-use paths and safe environment makes for a city with a very visible and active youth population throughout PTC.

For the price point you would find some home rental options, but as mentioned, the very few townhomes/apartments located in the city aren't great.

[citidata18]

Originally Posted by Yoski

As a black middle-age resident of Peachtree City with family, this is pretty much on point, but from my experience, there aren't many better places to raise kids. My kids range in age from toddler to high school kids.

I disagree with the bolded.

Sandy Springs, Buckhead and Alpharetta definitely rival PTC as far as being good places to raise kids. One could even argue they're somewhat better.

[Yoski]

Hence the aren't many better as opposed to no better. . But these things are matter of opinions and weighed by what we value in a community right?

[sedimenjerry]

With a $3,000 a month budget I think you could afford any of those places you mentioned although admittedly I'm more familiar with 1 bedroom apartment prices.

I live in Alpharetta now and love it. You can't get much safer as far as suburbs go in Atlanta although PTC is close.
I think it does well in the diversity category which is true of a lot of the Atlanta metro area. Alpharetta HS is less than 50% white and pretty evenly split among the other racial groups. I'm on Big Creek Greenway in Alpharetta/Roswell a lot and it's definitely not a constant stream of white people. I've seen all races and backgrounds out there, often whole families out together getting some exercise.

Alpharetta and PTC have the best public schools and are some of the best in the whole state. Buckhead and Sandy Springs is more mixed. The schools aren't necessarily bad, they just aren't top tier like in Alpharetta/PTC.


Atlanta suburbs as a whole aren't known for being walkable. There's been some improvement in recent years and there are walkable areas, they're just more isolated. Alpharetta has really fixed up there old town center area and have connected it to the Avalon which is a new-ish development nearby. I like the area a lot, but unless you get an apartment right there, you'll have to drive to it. On the plus side, you can usually easily find parking and once parked, you can browse and hang out at a plethora of places as opposed to the older suburban development that was so common where you have to drive to each individual store. There's still plenty of that in metro Atlanta, but there are also more options.