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I wasn't too sure about Baltimore given its relative lack of prominent immediate suburbs which is somewhat surprising given its size and age. Places like Ellicott City and Towson have enough spatial and cultural distance between themselves and Baltimore that make their distinctions hard to miss, but Dundalk, Catonsville, Pikesville, Woodlawn, Sparrows Point, etc. are all mostly a mixture of older postwar and newer suburban development that doesn't contrast sharply with the parts of the city they immediately border. And in the case of Woodlawn and Sparrows Point, they are or were home to big employers that are/were highly identified with Baltimore itself (SSA, CMS, the former steel plant).
Yea naw most of Atlantas suburbs are called Atlanta. But there are some differences in safety Ive heard expressed. Like my cousins live in Lake Arrowhead and Pooler GA and they do distinguish from Atlanta in regards to crime/ratchetness. Those places are very far from ATL though from what I understand.
Pooler is actually a suburb of Savannah and about 4 hours away from the Atlanta metro area. Lake Arrowhead is in the exurbs of Cherokee County in the far north Atlanta metro. From my understanding, both locations have minimal issues with crime - and there are plenty of other places around the state and metro that are similar.
Pooler is actually a suburb of Savannah and about 4 hours away from the Atlanta metro area. Lake Arrowhead is in the exurbs of Cherokee County in the far north Atlanta metro. From my understanding, both locations have minimal issues with crime - and there are plenty of other places around the state and metro that are similar.
Well then he's moved from Pooler- yea I thought Pooler was far away. He's now 40 minutes west of Atlanta, closer to Alabama he says (we had Xmas together yersterday).. I don't know the town name. But guessing somewhere around Temple GA.
I wasn't too sure about Baltimore given its relative lack of prominent immediate suburbs which is somewhat surprising given its size and age. Places like Ellicott City and Towson have enough spatial and cultural distance between themselves and Baltimore that make their distinctions hard to miss, but Dundalk, Catonsville, Pikesville, Woodlawn, Sparrows Point, etc. are all mostly a mixture of older postwar and newer suburban development that doesn't contrast sharply with the parts of the city they immediately border. And in the case of Woodlawn and Sparrows Point, they are or were home to big employers that are/were highly identified with Baltimore itself (SSA, CMS, the former steel plant).
Mentally and culturally there's a big divide. Im very very familiar with the bolded suburbs. While many ex-Baltimoreans live there. They move their explicitly for the major decrease in crime and other inner city ills. They're not that nice but they are also all predominately white except Woodlawn. With large mixed-race populations (anecdotally) and very little abandonment.
The people who live there are veyr different than those living in Mt. Vernon... or Sandtown..
Mentally and culturally there's a big divide. Im very very familiar with the bolded suburbs. While many ex-Baltimoreans live there. They move their explicitly for the major decrease in crime and other inner city ills. They're not that nice but they are also all predominately white except Woodlawn. With large mixed-race populations (anecdotally) and very little abandonment.
The people who live there are veyr different than those living in Mt. Vernon... or Sandtown..
City vs County is a significant thing.
Agreed. Culturally there closer to Baltimore's legit burbs than they are to the central core, which is driven home by the demographic flip once you cross county lines.
Boston also comes to mind.
Then, New York City.
Followed by, Washington DC.
from experiences.
I'm wondering (I've never been to Chicago outside of airports/hotels) if people from high density suburbs like Evanston or Cicero get the same scorn if they claim Chicago as people from Naperville do. Sounds like Bostonians are territorial even with close in, dense suburbs, but what about Chicago?
Yea naw most of Atlantas suburbs are called Atlanta. But there are some differences in safety Ive heard expressed. Like my cousins live in Lake Arrowhead and Pooler GA and they do distinguish from Atlanta in regards to crime/ratchetness. Those places are very far from ATL though from what I understand.
It’s not the first time I’ve heard people say Atlanta the city is a bit more lawless. Before Lake Arrowhead one of them lived in Sandy Springs, I thought it was Atlanta.
Pooler is a suburb of Savannah but after looking up Lake Arrowhead (which is an exurban leisure community in Cherokee County), it makes sense that those were the sentiments coming from your cousins. For the longest time, Sandy Springs was just the unincorporated area between Buckhead and the county's northern suburbs which Atlanta targeted for annexation in the mid-60s but was fiercely resisted by residents of the area (due to racial animus in large part at the time) which fended off annexation efforts by Atlanta until municipal incorporation became possible in the early part of this century. However, much, if not most, places in Sandy Springs have an Atlanta address.
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Atlanta so amorphous, faceless and suburban none of it seems to matter to me as a northeasterner.
The core metro area--which would be everything within the I-285 loop and the suburbs just outside of it--is anything but blandly homogenous, but it's easy enough for popular stereotypes to prevent those who lack familiarity with the Atlanta area from seeing anything beyond certain preconceived notions of the place. And that's too bad because it effectively erases the most important defining characteristic of any community, i.e. its people.
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McMansions, garden style apartments and community pools as far as the eye can see…
That sounds like a place that's not had any substantial population growth since the 90s and that's definitely not Atlanta. Now had you said walkUPs, roads, and trees (which obscure a lot of development that would otherwise be highly visible), you'd have a point.
Mentally and culturally there's a big divide. Im very very familiar with the bolded suburbs. While many ex-Baltimoreans live there. They move their explicitly for the major decrease in crime and other inner city ills. They're not that nice but they are also all predominately white except Woodlawn. With large mixed-race populations (anecdotally) and very little abandonment.
The people who live there are veyr different than those living in Mt. Vernon... or Sandtown..
City vs County is a significant thing.
Well of course, just like folks who live in Midtown and Virginia-Highland are generally a far cry from residents of Forest Park and East Point. But I do know in Baltimore, "the county" is essentially representative of the suburbs and the contrast between it and the city is mostly how the city/suburb differences are highlighted. With that in mind, would you say outlying city neighborhoods like Gwynn Oak and Frankford are culturally more like the suburbs in the county nearest them or central Baltimore neighborhoods? Frankford is likely more like intown Baltimore neighborhoods but perhaps the difference is less pronounced in Gwynn Oak?
Well of course, just like folks who live in Midtown and Virginia-Highland are generally a far cry from residents of Forest Park and East Point. But I do know in Baltimore, "the county" is essentially representative of the suburbs and the contrast between it and the city is mostly how the city/suburb differences are highlighted. With that in mind, would you say outlying city neighborhoods like Gwynn Oak and Frankford are culturally more like the suburbs in the county nearest them or central Baltimore neighborhoods? Frankford is likely more like intown Baltimore neighborhoods but perhaps the difference is less pronounced in Gwynn Oak?
Frankfort is like all the riff raff of the county concentrated and much blacker than the adjacent county. A better neighborhood for county similarities would probably be Cedonia or Cedmont.
Gwynn Oak is more similar socioeconomically to Woodlawn or Randallstown. Until you get right next to Mondawmin. Northwest Baltimore and far western Baltimore blend pretty well into their adjacent county counterparts *socially*, whereas Northeast Baltinore and far eastern Baltimore blend in better physically.
It seems to me like cities that blend more seamlessly into their suburbs are less likely to make that distinction. Whether the obstacles to blending are physical like a river or just a change in built environment. This may be especially true of larger, sunbelt and/or cities that have grown the most in recent decades.
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