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No economic/Quality of Life analysis can reference several other large MSAs and exclude one with 8 million residents, that is also a top 3 locale for Fortune 500 companies and top 5 in GDP in North America.
As a recent transplant to the Atlanta area, my criteria was:
- Big city (criteria was at least a million people)
- Economy not in shambles and at least growing
- Not in an arid climate (if it was going to be arid I would've just stayed in Phoenix)
- Not Chicago like winters
- Not New Orleans like summers (but would rather have this than a Chicago winter)
- Good airport
- Ideally had some degree of urbanization, which coming from Phoenix, essentially meant everywhere was an option
Atlanta was already a strong candidate. Towards the end of it all, I settled mostly on Raleigh or Charlotte, Dallas, Atlanta, or DC. I crossed off North Carolina on the pretense that I'd likely get bored while living there since it seemed mostly geared for families, it lacked urbanization, and just didn't seem as strong economically as the others. Dallas I crossed off because it lacked the overall appeal to me as DC and Atlanta did due to weather/climate/geography on top of the fact that Texas as a whole has been rather... chaotic recently I was uncertain of where it may stand in the near future. DC or Atlanta was tough decision. Between Atlanta and DC, I was essentially splitting hairs. What ultimately pulled Atlanta for the win:
- DC is heavily geared for white collar work. I do white collar work in blue collar industries (mostly), in the DC area, this is far from actual DC and deep in the exurbs of Virginia and Maryland. Of which I would pick Maryland over Virginia significantly due to having family and friends in the Baltimore and Philly area. However due to the area and how it's set up, I was starting to look more at Baltimore for work, rather than DC. DC is still an option though in my field significantly so, due to the public sector work (of which there is a bunch of) and consulting jobs being more concentrated in DC, Atlanta is known as the #2 hub in my industry. And in Atlanta's case, the private and public sector significance of jobs wasn't split between two different (even if very close) cities of DC and Baltimore, it was just Atlanta.
- DC's winning traits of having more urban/walkable neighborhoods and WMATA stopped being realistic upon looking at where I'd likely end up working (see bullet point prior).
- Atlanta is almost the closest one can get to Florida without being in Florida, a big pro since my closest family members live in SW Florida, which I've already crossed off due to it being too hot all the time and also having crappy economy in my industry and low pay. So the fact that I can drive to Florida in a day is actually a good plus for Atlanta.
- This is probably out of ignorance (I continuously fail to understand how close everything out on the East Coast is to one another even now that I live on the East Coast, I'm still on the Western standard of things being much farther apart) but DC at least to me appears far from the mountains, since I assumed one in the area wouldn't really get to any mountains until closer to West Virginia and even then maybe a bit further in than the WV and VA border. Mountains appeared easier to access in Atlanta. And while DC is closer to the beaches and coasts especially when one factors in the Chesapeake Bay... I get my beach fill for the year when I go down to Florida a couple times a year to visit family. And frankly once I started experiencing Florida beaches the only other place that really compares to a Floridian beach is a Hawaiian beach, at least in the US, so I didn't really care to have beach access. And again, one can drive to Florida or Savannah or Charleston for a beach from Atlanta readily enough, let alone fly, so Atlanta's beach access was still acceptable to me. Then with the add on of being closer to mountains made it a better place for nature access.
- While I go to the Baltimore area every year in the summer, I know that I like the summers there, but the winters were a big toss up to me for DC (Baltimore and DC are close enough to say that weather wise they are essentially the same), and I was worried they would be too snowy and cold for my liking having never been there in the winter. Atlanta was potentially hotter in the summer than the "ideal", I also know that it'd still be cooler than Florida and New Orleans, which was really my main criteria, on top of that Atlanta doesn't really get snow which I liked even more. The ideal weather for me doesn't exist in accordance with my other criteria, the ideal weather would be the taller Appalachians down south at 3-5k elevation. Guess where that happens to be close to... Atlanta.
- Atlanta's COL is not a near death sentence like the DC environs. Atlanta's COL was comparable to Phoenix's if not even maybe better than Phoenix's in certain ways.
- Since I was considering I'd probably end up in the Maryland burbs of DC, or Baltimore burbs, I was looking at using BWI to fly. Everytime I have flown in or out of BWI has been a bad experience, usually some nonsense of being stuck waiting at the gate to either connect to the gate or stuck waiting on the runway. It's at a point where I'm looking at flying in to Philadelphia moving forward when I go up there. Hadn't really dealt with ATL yet at the time but had a feeling that basically any major airport at this point was still better than BWI. Dulles and National are potentially better than BWI but that would also be under the pretense of living on the Maryland side and wanting to get over there which depending on how deep I was going to end up in Maryland would be a less than ideal situation, due to what I assumed would be wretched traffic horrors unique to the BosWash corridor. I heard that one wants to avoid crossing the Potomac regularly because of traffic chokepoints and while it's not like I fly daily it still weighed into my decision. ATL is the world's busiest airport or very close to, which was definitely intimidating but it did mean that you could probably fly anywhere you wanted out of ATL. So ATL had not only potentially better service and more places to fly to but also hadn't wronged me (I had a layover in ATL once before moving here) was a win in Atlanta's favor.
- I assumed that Atlanta, being less gentrified of a city in comparison to DC, would have more culture and soul and less of a corporate and rigid feel, and I would be more inclined to like Atlanta's "personality".
If I knew more work options existed in DC rather than being sent off to the Baltimore sphere of influence, or I worked in a different field, then it would've been likely all things considered I would have picked DC. So for me to see these two rank so highly is not a surprise. If Atlanta does not end up being my ultimate place, DC (or Maryland side of DC) is probably where I'll go.
Hey Prickly! We're looking at possibly moving to the Atlanta area as well. It's been a nice running the desert but we want to be closer to family back east, primarily in Georgia. What did you ultimately decide?
Atlanta needs to get serious about infrastructure. Hard to say a city is the most livable if a car is required. MARTA has done absolutely nothing with the system in 25 years. Traffic is just going to get worse.
I agree. I live in BANGKOK, and I would prefer it on that merit alone.
Hey Prickly! We're looking at possibly moving to the Atlanta area as well. It's been a nice running the desert but we want to be closer to family back east, primarily in Georgia. What did you ultimately decide?
What do you mean? I chose Atlanta and at a big risk. Ended up in Marietta but, close enough. Never once stepped foot in Georgia before moving here (not counting layovers at ATL) and I'm not regretting my choice. Was my move here poorly planned and executed on an extremely short and executed timeline? Yes, my moving experience was in fact, horrible. But choosing this place was not. I made a few threads about it, and I read even more than I posted about. Atlanta was a risk, but a calculated one.
My only problems with the area so far is a lack of local friends and my rent being too high and my commute being too long. This can be rectified with a new job or a pay raise which I hope, pending no major economic events, will be easy for me to do once December rolls around. I have to wait until after Thanksgiving for certain reasons, nonetheless these are fixable problems.
Atlanta unlike many US cities such as Los Angeles, San Diego, Honolulu, NYC etc. has felt welcoming and I was quick to adjust living here once I stopped sleeping on a mattress on the floor. The "vibes" of the area have been positive and I find many Atlantans to be friendly and open-minded.
My favorite city in the US in terms of built environment and people will probably always be New Orleans but the economy, COL and frankly the heat of that city is too unbearable for me. New Orleans is also a constant hurricane risk. Atlanta gets rid of all of those problems in exchange for having a worse built environment, which is proving to be a fair trade in the grand scheme of things. But if I can find an area of Atlanta that mimics the area of New Orleans proper from south of Clairborne Ave and the I-10 east until Marigny I'd try to invent time travel and go back into the past and move in but unfortunately no part of Atlanta seems to even come close to neighborhoods like the Irish Channel.
Atlanta has some historic neighborhoods that come close but they lack the interconnectivity and in large swaths of the city's proper to make it even comparable to New Orleans. Which is a shame, truly.
One thing I like about Atlanta is that it has 4 seasons but leans towards the warmer side of things.
It's not too cold like Chicago or Boston, but it isn't too hot all year like Florida. I think the name "Hot-lanta" that some people use is inaccurate. It gets hot in Atlanta, but not ridiculously so like Florida, Texas or Louisiana.
Summers just about everywhere are hot anyway. Even in Montana, which drops to minus 40 fahrenheit during the winter, gets pretty hot during July and August. What separates Atlanta from the Northeast weather-wise, to me, is that summer weather comes earlier (around May or even late April some years) and stays an extra month or so (September/October). Honestly, there were many days this past July/August where NYC was more hot and humid than Atlanta!
Atlanta also cools down enough to get reprieve from the heat but not too long to get depressed with the cold.
In terms of livability, that type of weather is a pretty good factor.
No it's not San Diego's year-long mild temperature, but it is a pretty good variation of the 4 season type of climate for me!
But if I can find an area of Atlanta that mimics the area of New Orleans proper from south of Clairborne Ave and the I-10 east until Marigny I'd try to invent time travel and go back into the past and move in but unfortunately no part of Atlanta seems to even come close to neighborhoods like the Irish Channel.
Atlanta has some historic neighborhoods that come close but they lack the interconnectivity and in large swaths of the city's proper to make it even comparable to New Orleans. Which is a shame, truly.
I get your overall point that ATL isn't NOLA, but that place looks pretty similar to most of the eastside intown neighborhoods (Cabbagetown/Inman Park/VaHi/O4W/etc.) and I wouldn't say those lack connectivity especially with the Beltline now not to the point of saying they don't even come close IMO at least.
Maybe I'm just clouded by my opinion that intown ATL is a lot smaller than most people perceive it to be.
I get your overall point that ATL isn't NOLA, but that place looks pretty similar to most of the eastside intown neighborhoods (Cabbagetown/Inman Park/VaHi/O4W/etc.) and I wouldn't say those lack connectivity especially with the Beltline now not to the point of saying they don't even come close IMO at least.
One large advantage NOLA has it hasn't been a successful region in modern times.
That sounds bad and negative, but it prevented too much development during a really harmful period. It also means the cost of acquiring a home in older areas for people that like the charm is far more affordable, than you would find in a comparable neighborhood in Atlanta. We lack the inventory for a region of 6 million and it pushes the prices higher.
Of course the downside to this is many don't see the economic opportunity desired to actually move there, as Prickly Pear mentioned.
It sure is a great to visit.
For Atlanta we had much of our mid '20s-'40s era suburbs survive with a great deal of charm and now they have historical protections despite a lack of density in some areas. However the older areas that are more confined to the neighborhoods we consider to make up the larger Downtown and Midtown areas lost a great deal of their character, look, and feel of the past. The '50-'90s building booms really created many windowless 'fortress' buildings, while destroying smaller buildings that had the character of an older, smaller regional city, but pre-WWII and walkable.
A large benefit NOLA has, is they got to keep that in their commercial core, at least to a large extent.
One large advantage NOLA has it hasn't been a successful region in modern times.
That sounds bad and negative, but it prevented too much development during a really harmful period. It also means the cost of acquiring a home in older areas for people that like the charm is far more affordable, than you would find in a comparable neighborhood in Atlanta. We lack the inventory for a region of 6 million and it pushes the prices higher.
Of course the downside to this is many don't see the economic opportunity desired to actually move there, as Prickly Pear mentioned.
It sure is a great to visit.
For Atlanta we had much of our mid '20s-'40s era suburbs survive with a great deal of charm and now they have historical protections despite a lack of density in some areas. However the older areas that are more confined to the neighborhoods we consider to make up the larger Downtown and Midtown areas lost a great deal of their character, look, and feel of the past. The '50-'90s building booms really created many windowless 'fortress' buildings, while destroying smaller buildings that had the character of an older, smaller regional city, but pre-WWII and walkable.
A large benefit NOLA has, is they got to keep that in their commercial core, at least to a large extent.
All good points and I agree. NOLA has a lot of beautifully preserved historic neighborhoods and areas, while ATL pretty much only kept the streetcar suburbs and removed everything else save for a couple of blocks here and there. I'm just saying if someone showed me the streetview from his post and told me it was in ATL I'd probably believe it.
What I see here is cities that are unlivable and have been already destroyed by their politicians, and cities that are still livable and are soon to be destroyed by their politicians... I'll pass.
I get your overall point that ATL isn't NOLA, but that place looks pretty similar to most of the eastside intown neighborhoods (Cabbagetown/Inman Park/VaHi/O4W/etc.) and I wouldn't say those lack connectivity especially with the Beltline now not to the point of saying they don't even come close IMO at least.
Maybe I'm just clouded by my opinion that intown ATL is a lot smaller than most people perceive it to be.
VaHi has homes mostly in the 1-2 mil range, certainly not for the average family. Though they are beautiful and tend to be larger.
The others are debatable. Based on Zillow’s current listings, the barrier to entry on townhouses or smaller SFH is 500k no matter the criteria. Maybe a couple that don’t fit that but that’s the average. From what I can tell, most if not all the east side intown homes are SFH unless they are new-build or close to new build. This is a big contrast to NOLA’s Irish Channel, where every property, with some exceptions, is a duplex at a minimum including the street view I provided earlier. Prices are the same but you are getting more square footage and in a shotgun rowhome versus the package Atlanta is selling which is less dense and separated SFH with less square footage in the home.
Nonetheless I do stand by what I say in that Atlanta overall is a nice place to be, and I am happy to be here. The things that are not perfect (like built environment) are manmade and can be rectified with the right investment.
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