Do you find it hard to make/keep friends in atlanta?
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Haven't been out to Duluth yet but Alpharetta (and Roswell) do have more 20s and 30s than Suwanee. Maybe not as much as intown, but when I've been out with friends we definitely aren't the only ones in that age bracket. Problem is it can be hard to actually make inroads and meet those people cause they usual already have their social circles
What do 20s and 30s folks do in Alpharetta and Roswell? Go to the Avalon?
What do 20s and 30s folks do in Alpharetta and Roswell? Go to the Avalon?
Yep.
20 and 30-somethings in Alpharetta and Roswell (many of whom might have been drawn to the area by the fast-growing tech hub that is centered on Alpharetta) often may go to Avalon to socialize in some of the restaurants and/or bars there.
There are also other mixed-use developments like Halcyon and The Collection at Forsyth that also provide restaurants and/or bars for younger far-Northside residents to meet and socialize.
It’s obviously not the same as the restaurant/bar/social scene in Intown Atlanta, but there are at least some decent opportunities to socialize outside of the I-285 Perimeter, including in an area like Alpharetta/Roswell.
Honestly not so much Avalon. My friends and I all kinda view it as a shopping destination that also has some bars (although there is a particular restaurant we've been wanting to try). We mainly go to downtown Alpharetta. Plenty of restaurants and breweries. Also Canton St/Roswell isn't that far away. Plus options like Topgolf, ice skating, bowling, etc. Might not be the "cool" thing to do but I enjoy em. Also got the amphitheater for concerts whenever that starts back up post-COVID.
Went to Halcyon Friday night last week. I would say more families than dt Alpharetta, but we weren't the only ones in our age group either. Open containers like Alpharetta so just grab a drink to go and hang out and talk. Weather was nice so we just sat outside the entire time and ate some food too. We'll probably go back. It's also very close to my office so whenever we go back and end WFH, I could easily grab lunch there or maybe do a happy hour after work.
Make no mistake about it, if you want nightlife and nightclubs/staying out til 3 am or later, etc. Alpharetta is not the place but that suits me just fine. Once I made it past grad school and turned 25 I had had enough of super late nights and drinking hard every single weekend. I work a normal M-F schedule so during the week I absolutely don't want to be out late. Dinner at a local place with a couple of craft beers is perfect for a Wednesday. But even weekends I like to be in bed by midnight which is about when everything starts to shut down anyway.
Also plenty of trails nearby. I like how active I can be after work cause there's plenty to do within a short drive. (I promise I do more than just drink)
The set up definitely works better if you already have a social network which was what I was getting at earlier. There is actually a decent amount of 20s/30s here but the social circles are a little more set already. There are apps you can be active on to meet others it just takes a little more work. But once you do have those friends there are places to hang out and spend a day. If today ends up a nice day and a little warmer I could very well end up going to downtown Alpharetta this afternoon for a beer or two with some friends.
Thanks for the feedback all! Yeah clubs till 3 AM is not mine or most peoples cup of tea , but I find it easier to connect with people who are in my age bracket, that's the thing more so the party.
Visiting Winder a bit ago and Gainesville this weekend visiting acquaintances, they seem more mixed age wise. Maybe it's just an outer suburb thing where older families heavily congregate. Gainesville is an interesting place, totally different vibe than Athens or Suwanee or Atlanta!
It is interesting exploring all the different towns, they do have their own history and feel, which makes for a lot of variety in one place! I'll have to make it over to Alpharetta and explore that next.
Visiting Winder a bit ago and Gainesville this weekend visiting acquaintances, they seem more mixed age wise.
Even given the sprawl in Atlanta, I don't know that most people would classify Winder or Gainesville as suburbs.
Having spent some time there for business, Gainesville by and large has its own sense of place separate from Atlanta in my experience.
Winder I've always viewed as more in the Athens orbit if anything (where you'd certainly expect to see an older crowd, given that the younger crowd in Athens is all in the UGA orbit; folks don't move out of town until they have kids where it's usually Oconee County, but with Barrow having some options now too).
Visiting Winder a bit ago and Gainesville this weekend visiting acquaintances, they seem more mixed age wise. Maybe it's just an outer suburb thing where older families heavily congregate. Gainesville is an interesting place, totally different vibe than Athens or Suwanee or Atlanta!
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Originally Posted by BobbyJayATL
Even given the sprawl in Atlanta, I don't know that most people would classify Winder or Gainesville as suburbs.
Having spent some time there for business, Gainesville by and large has its own sense of place separate from Atlanta in my experience.
Winder I've always viewed as more in the Athens orbit if anything (where you'd certainly expect to see an older crowd, given that the younger crowd in Athens is all in the UGA orbit; folks don't move out of town until they have kids where it's usually Oconee County, but with Barrow having some options now too).
Winder and Gainesville seem to fall into the category of being exurbs of Atlanta.
Winder and surrounding Barrow County are actually part of the 29-county Atlanta MSA (Metropolitan Statistical Area), while Gainesville and Hall County are officially its own one-county MSA that is also part of the roughly 40-county Atlanta CSA (Combined Statistical Area) that includes other farther-flung areas like Athens, LaGrange, Cedartown, Calhoun and Jefferson.
Gainesville is an interesting case because, as the largest and most important city that serves as the major industrial and political hub for the Northeast Georgia Mountains region, Gainesville both has its own sense of place that is separate from Atlanta (as BobbyJayATL noted) and, as a very (if not critically) important industrial city that is located on metro Atlanta’s main water source (Lake Lanier) at the northeast edge of metropolitan and regional Atlanta, Gainesville is strongly and closely connected to Atlanta in numerous ways.
For example, in addition to being located on Atlanta’s main water source and a very popular metro Atlanta attraction (Lake Lanier) only one county outside of the boundaries of the Atlanta MSA in the larger Atlanta CSA, Hall County is home to the Atlanta Falcons Training Center complex.
Hall County also is home to a second/satellite location of the Atlanta Botanical Garden (Atlanta Botanical Garden, Gainesville) and is often included in metro Atlanta news reports.
It is an interesting duality that Gainesville has as both a community with its own individual identity that is the main hub for the entire Northeast Georgia Mountains region and as a key part of metro/regional greater Atlanta.
Gainesville is its own thing that has directly benefited from being geographically close to Atlanta.
When people in outer-exurban and rural parts of the Northeast Georgia Mountains region need any type of amenity that might can only be found in a larger metropolitan and/or urban area, the first place they might often go or look to is Gainesville... Something which reflects how important Gainesville is to the Northeast Georgia Mountains region.
Yeah, both are their own town, but have the growth on the outskirts that comes from being in the Atlanta-sphere. I had assumed that Gainesville was going to be a suburb for lake house people initially and was pleasantly surprised to see an old school town!
Yeah, both are their own town, but have the growth on the outskirts that comes from being in the Atlanta-sphere. I had assumed that Gainesville was going to be a suburb for lake house people initially and was pleasantly surprised to see an old school town!
Yep Gainesville really developed as its own town away from Atlanta. Lake Lanier wasn't even "done" until the mid/late 50s at which point Gainesville was already approaching 15,000 people. For a long time there was pretty much nothing between Buford and Gainesville on 985. Just a few small towns like Oakwood and Flowery Branch. Not much at the exits.
Fast forward to today and it all just blends together. Hard to call Oakwood a suburb of Atlanta when really it's more like a suburb of Gainesville. Still, you leave Oakwood and head south and you're never really in the middle of nowhere. Before too long you find yourself in Gwinnett and solidly in what would be considered Atlanta suburbs.
Yeah, both are their own town, but have the growth on the outskirts that comes from being in the Atlanta-sphere. I had assumed that Gainesville was going to be a suburb for lake house people initially and was pleasantly surprised to see an old school town!
Yeah, Gainesville actually is a pretty powerful town, both industrially and politically.
Gainesville actually often exercises a very strong (and sometimes even dominant) amount of political influence over Atlanta and the state of Georgia as a whole.
Many state government leaders and high-ranking Georgia politicos have hailed from the Gainesville area, particularly as Northeast metro Atlanta and Northeast Georgia has continued to explode in growth after the 1990 announcement that Atlanta would play host to the 1996 Summer Olympic Games.
(The substantial and often outsized amount of political power that the Gainesville area has often wielded over metro Atlanta, Northeast Georgia and Georgia politics has earned the area’s group of powerful politicians the nickname of the “Hall County Mafia.”)
The strength of the Gainesville and Hall County economy has enabled multiple high-ranking Gainesville-area politicos to rise to power in Georgia politics on the strength of the financial backing of the poultry processing industry and other major industries in the area which have been powered largely by the presence of Lake Lanier’s relatively cheap and affordable hydroelectric power.
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Originally Posted by sedimenjerry
Yep Gainesville really developed as its own town away from Atlanta. Lake Lanier wasn't even "done" until the mid/late 50s at which point Gainesville was already approaching 15,000 people. For a long time there was pretty much nothing between Buford and Gainesville on 985. Just a few small towns like Oakwood and Flowery Branch. Not much at the exits.
Fast forward to today and it all just blends together. Hard to call Oakwood a suburb of Atlanta when really it's more like a suburb of Gainesville. Still, you leave Oakwood and head south and you're never really in the middle of nowhere. Before too long you find yourself in Gwinnett and solidly in what would be considered Atlanta suburbs.
That is an excellent point that it is hard to call Oakwood a suburb of Atlanta when it’s really more like a suburb of Gainesville.
I’d say that Oakwood is an exurb of Atlanta and is a suburb of Gainesville, which is an even larger exurb of Atlanta.
Flowery Branch, meanwhile, seems to have grown into and become a far-outer suburb of Atlanta, particularly after the area became the site of the Atlanta Falcons Training Center complex.
Before that, Flowery Branch was an exurb of Atlanta, courtesy of the existence of Lake Lanier and the construction of Interstate 985.
Very interesting background jerry and Born 2 Roll!
It's interesting it's such a hub for influence when it sounds like Gainesville had it real bad in 30s with the Depression, cotton weevil, and then getting leveled by the tornado. That's a pretty incredible bounce back! From going to the history museum, it sounds like the area really never had any money up until Lake Lanier was finished and going on into the present.
Going through the Hispanic portion of the town was like getting warped back to Mexico City! I had no idea there would be anything that authentic in the Atlanta area.
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, but I find it easier to connect with people who are in my age bracket, that's the thing more so the party. 
