Your City Sucks: Altanta

The narrow minded comment made me chuckle. I no longer surprised by how myopic certain people can be. In my personal experience moving between Chicago, Appalachia, LA and now deep in the rural heart of Texas is that "broad mindeded" people (especially those in larger cities) often overestimate their own tolerance, and see no reason to be tolerant of, interested in understanding the rural or southern culture within their own country, and have a profoundly limited, almost cartoonish understanding of the motivations, predjudices and attitudes of the same. I remember with particular humor a roadtrip with people that I had worked with in some rough areas of Chicago to Lvingston, TN. During the trip a couple of the group got into a discussion without every having stepped from the van about how backward and prejudiced the people in the area were.

Living in Atlanta for 4 years while in college at Georgia Tech, I can basically corroborate on the opinions here (except the funding ones which I have less information about).

My overall opinion about the city is that it in a lot of ways is looking to other cities for inspiration, believing that Atlanta needs to become a major city of influence and prestige on the country and the world. With that goal, however, there's currently far too much "us-too" leading to posturing and materialism and burnout.

Underneath that exterior, of course, there are a whole ton of people in art, music (huge underground music scene on the east side), and technology (lots of engineers and young doctors) doing wonderful things. I think it'll come as a surprise to many in the city that should that side of its culture ever take hold that they might have a chance of actually developing a unique city identity.

I'll also reiterate the point that Atlanta feels like a collection of unconnected neighborhoods instead of a real city. The place was burned down twice in history and rebuilt ostentatiously under the influence of zero central planning. Roads meander oddly and there's a demand for a car given the inadequate public transport MARTA provides. Traffic on the major in-city highway, which is a perpetually under construction connector between two major out of city highways, is almost always a parking lot and that spills into the city making rush hours tricky at best. I managed to bike everywhere which is adequate but not immediately safe. It can also be a bear to have to go 15 miles up and down hills to get to your favorite bar or a concert.

I am already over the "Your X sucks" articles and we've only just gotten started. The title is so irrelevantly offensive (since it has little to do with the content).

I live in Atlanta. The number one thing for me is this: "Traffic can be horrendous, especially for those who live outside the city but work downtown." Other than that, it's not a bad place to live, if you're just working a job.

For startups, there isn't anywhere near the investor community you'd find in other cities, especially when compared to SV. For instance, Atlanta's Shotput Ventures funded one company in 2010, but Y Combinator funded dozens.

However, if you want to work for a Fortune 500 company, and have the sense to live near where you work, Atlanta can be wonderful. You can find all kinds of places that have tech shops or even their corp headquarters in town and probably a cheap house, too.

I would love to see more of these. It's surprisingly hard to find good summaries of what life in a city is really like, especially geared toward tech people.

I'd volunteer to provide info on New Orleans, but I don't know enough to put it together myself.

"The city is quite segregated (mexicans, white, black, asian, etc are in certain areas and don’t often mix)."

Eh, kind of. It's more segregated by socio-economics just like everywhere else. As a counterexample, many areas in Gwinnett contain Hispanics, whites, Asians, and blacks. Many of the neighborhoods on the East and South of Atlanta contain whites and blacks in mixed neighborhoods. I don't know that the wealthy parts of town are any less diverse than the sample of wealthy people overall. Mostly white, some black, some Indian, some Chinese, etc.

I read the linked article and was immediately turned off the by narrowed minded comment under cons. Just because someone disagrees with the authors personal political ideology does not necessarily make them narrow minded. If he was simply talking about racists, bigots, and the like then you can find those in any city as large as Atlanta.

This author based his idea on the post here:

http://stu.mp/2010/11/your-city-sucks-and-so-does-mine.html

I disagree with a lot of what the author said were cons of Boulder. In a pro he says good ski slopes are 3 hours away, but a con is Denver is too far. Huh? Denver is plenty close enough to Boulder to drive to for a concert or to see a professional sporting event if that's your thing.

The cold really isn't that bad here either. Does it get cold in the winter? Yes, but it's not unbearable like Chicago or any other mid-western city. When the sun comes out it really does feel much warmer here. I was in Oregon not long ago and I had forgotten how miserable the wet cold feels even when the thermometer says it's not that cold.

Now I gotta jet because I only live 1:30 away from good snow and it's opening day at Keystone :D

have lived and hacked in metro/downtown Atlanta my entire adult life (however decently well traveled inside and outside the US), I think the emphasis on traffic being horrible cannot be understated. I would love to see a large scale study of Atlanta residents' overall perception of Atlanta grouped by how many miles they drive per week avg. It is an amazing city provided you are within walking distance of your destination between the hours of 7am and 7pm weekdays.

I live in atlanta…pretty accurate. Except for the comment about the weather. Yeah we have all 4 seasons…but we also have all 4 seasons once a week during the so-called "fall" and "spring." And there's no snow. One morning or so a year, there's a half-inch of snow on the ground. Occasionally, it's followed by ice that the DOT covers with sand instead of salt for reasons that have never been adequately explained.

Oh, and there's no such thing as clean local politics. Want something passed…pay for it. Period.

Maybe someone can edit the headline to correct the spelling? Thanks.

Altanta?

I program in Buckhead on the the northside of Atlanta. If you are from here it is a great place. Basically almost nobody is from here so one thing in common everyone has is how long ago their family moved here.