neigh·bor·hood – n – 1. a district or area with distinctive characteristics
aradia’s recent post announcing she was moving really got me thinking. i mean i happen to love atlanta. i have been here a little over a year and a half now on this stint and have absolutely fallen in love with the place. not to long ago i even posted my own little love letter to the city on my blog.
of course maybe some of her points were valid and i understand where she is coming from. i HATE houston and plenty of people just love the town so who knows?. i don’t know a lot yet about the local music scene, but it does seem to me that there are a ton of blogs covering local music (cable and tweed, drive a faster car, confessions of a music addict and more) so i don’t know.
but what it really got me thinking of is what i love about atlanta. and part of it, is that there is a neighborhood for everyone. preppy frat types have va-hi, punk rockers have l5p and yes, if you want all the convenience of the suburbs without the drive, there is even atlantic station.
as for me, i love east atlanta. i love it so much that despite pledging to NEVER put one of those European circular car sticker thingies on my car, i found myself applying an eav sticker one afternoon.
i moved down there last may pretty much sight-unseen, and the eav has become my favorite neighborhood in all of Atlanta. i love the extreme diversity of EVERYTHING in the eav. people, places, shops all thrown together that don’t even go together and somehow it just works; and let’s not forget some pretty amazing and inexpensive food. i love that everything is local, that the chains have yet to invade. i love the idea that you absolutely never know when you walk into grant central pizza east just what the crowd is going to look like. it represents for me the panoply that is non-mass marketed america.
so in celebration of the diversity that make up atlanta’s neighborhoods and villages, i want to ask all of you, what is your favorite neighborhood in atlanta and why?
I live in Midtown, in the little area bordering Piedmont Park and right near VaHi. I love it, love walking to the movies, to go eat, and despite being in Midtown there’s definitely a sense of “neighborhood” as well. I honestly can’t imagine living anywhere else, so I’ll probably just rent forever since I’ll never afford to own a piece of it ;)
Admittedly I’m lukewarm about the ATL. I’ve been to NYC and LA. The sheer size of those 2 cities them inherently different from ATL. However, the huge difference ATL has is in the cost of living. You can afford a house here. You can do business cheaper here, for the most part.
man. i actually have stuff to say about all that stuff (the music, the neighborhoods, the town) but it’s so much and i’m so inarticulate and incoherent that i guess it’ll have to wait for one of those bloggery thingamabobs with the beer…if i actually ever show up this time.
i like my neighborhood the best. Cause my house is there.
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I heart Inman Park. It’s both funky and genteel at the same time. It’s convenient to just about everything. Lots of green space and lovely old trees, beautiful homes with character, cute local restaurants and shops…I love everything about it. Its neighboring neighborhoods of L5P, Old Fourth Ward, and Cabbagetown/Reynoldstown are tops in my book too.
I live downtown and I tend to spend most of my non-sober moments in Cabbagetown / Grant Park at 97 Estoria and the soon-to-be-relocated-due-to-condo-development Lenny’s and I love those areas even if the people can be a little – detached.
I like downtown a lot too. I love being in walking distance of the Peachtree St. parades, The Ted, the CNN Center/Dome/GWCC and the parks (Centennial and Woodruff – I love it homeless and all). The people downtown are really cool too, and it’s not nearly as busy as Midtown. It’s kind of a laid back version of city life where people and cars aren’t all on top of you.
man, that is the most compelling, heart-felt endorsement of downtown atlanta i have heard in a while.
I love midtown! I have lived here off and on for almost 10 years now (with stints in Chicago, DC, and living with relatives south of the city). I can’t imagine living anywhere else. I miss the sense of community, but that’s my own fault for not getting involved and traveling often for work. But,the ability to walk to get just about anything (groceries, restaurants, bars, movies, shopping,etc) is a number one priority for my husband and me.
EAV! For all the reasons you declare.
But let’s just keep saying KIRKWOOD! It’ll be our little code, and the big chains will conquer Kirkwood, and pass over East Atlanta, because “well, we already sacked Atlanta, so that counts, right?”
okay steve – deal. love that KIRKWOOD.
I’m a rariety in this city… born and raised IN the city my entire life. While I’ve got some crazy wanderlust – I love Atlanta and would hate to never be able to come home to it. I think the only reason I’ve kept my sanity after being here a quarter of a decade is the diversity of the city like you mentioned. It’s all about getting out there though and exploring it all. Everything you could ever crave is in Atlanta. Well almost.
And thanks for the plug!