Atlanta? Worst possible choice. Traffic, crime, lousy standard of living. Blah. Good airport though...if you can get there.
The airport is easy enough to get to if you fly in. The rest of the city, not so much.
You don’t know Atlanta
“Atlanta? Worst possible choice. Traffic, crime, lousy standard of living. Blah. Good airport though...if you can get there.”
That’s just not true. It would describe downtown Atlanta proper, where only about 475,000 ppl live, but certainly not the greater metro area of about 5.5 million ppl. I was born and raised up North, lived in the Northwest, then in FL for many years. I relocated with my family to the northern Atlanta burbs 18 years ago. I’ve lived in a number of those Atlanta metro cities, and I can tell you the quality of life is second to very few. They are full of professionals and executives, and the public schools are some of the top in the nation. I moved back from Scottsdale AZ in 2010- Johns Creek where we live now compares very favorably for quality of life and safety. When I want to take a day off and get away from people, I’m 1 and 1/2 hours from some of the finest hiking and waterfall viewing anywhere east of the Mississippi. There’s a reason Porsche, Mercedes, and other corporate HQs have relocated to the Atlanta metro area recently. But you do have to live here to know and when to deal with the traffic on the major roads!
Atlanta Underground within walking distance of my house is ideal. I walk right through it every day walking home from my downtown gig.
Crime? Not compared to Chicago or even Chicago burbs I came from. I can walk all over my South and East side Atlanta without the hint of crime.
Traffic? 50% of traffic problem is easily and cheaply fixed. A new expressway on the edge of Benz stadium above Northside Dr and from I75 down to the airport is the other half...no more expensive than the Cobb County Expressway in the sky.
Atlanta’s Underground is an Urban Planners typical mistake. They built N-S and E-W commuter rail lines intersecting at the Underground. Then they required that there be massive open space around the commuter hub.
Stupid. High density offices and housing should be at a commuter hub.
Atlanta’s Gulch is just 2 blocks west of the Underground. It would be the #2 choice for me. It is underused rail yards and parking lots between the basketball and soccer stadiums. (I say soccer because soccer has bigger attendance than NFL in Benz stadium.)
Well, now, I wouldn’t say that. I lived in ATL for almost 24 years. Generally low crime except in a few center city locations. Lower cost of living than any major city. Traffic is bad during rush hours (7 - 9 and 4:30 - 6:30) but not bad most of the day. MARTA keeps expanding, and the roads are being widened.
I was there in the 1990s through 2014, when Atlanta was adding 100,000 - 150,000 people each year, and it handled the increase very well.
On the other hand, I’ve seen what Amazon did to Seattle, and it is not pretty. Atlanta has one huge advantage over Seattle. There is so much developable land in the Atlanta Metro area, that it can keep housing relatively stable. But the high salaries that Amazon offers will be highly disruptive to any city. People will leave their stable jobs by the 1000s to get an Amazon job. There will be instant shortages of labor in the rest of the businesses there.
Orange County CA, where I call home now, is a complete mess. Crazy traffic, immigrant influx (China and Mexico) without assimilation, poor services, overpriced housing, etc. We could not handle any big businesses moving here.