Atlanta All The Way
“We just couldn’t do it anymore,” said Public-relations executive Scott Merritt, 35, who, along with his teacher wife and two kids, left New York for more-affordable Atlanta. “Eventually we had to say enough was enough. It was just no way to live, and I could see no way out.” Merritt, who made an “above average”…
“We just couldn’t do it anymore,” said Public-relations executive Scott Merritt, 35, who, along with his teacher wife and two kids, left New York for more-affordable Atlanta. “Eventually we had to say enough was enough. It was just no way to live, and I could see no way out.” Merritt, who made an “above average” salary as a PR exec, and his family joined an estimated 40,000 New Yorkers who opted for the warmer, and more affordable, climes of Atlanta between 2000 and 2005. [NY Post]
I grew up in ATL. I’ve lived in ATL, DC, Chicago, New Orleans (pre-Katrina), and NYC.
I’m even here now for the holidays with my parents. Allow me to share a few thoughts:
1. It’s a car-based city.
2. The traffic is pretty bad.
3. The crime is very localized in a few areas–much more so than NYC.
4. There is a lot of white/black division along economic lines. However, there is a large black middle class very similar to NYC.
5. Employment is a lot more scattered around the metropolitan area.
6. The growth over the last 10 years has been shocking. They’ve just been developing further and further out financed by the Mutant Real Estate Bubble.
7. There are more chain-based restaurants, but there is good food if you know where to go.
8. The shopping is really good. It has more retail per capita than any other major city.
9. It has a few whole foods instead of a toxic hole.
It’s just an entirely different way of life.
I think Brooklyn is like Paris and the South Seas island paradises combined. Never has mankind produced such beauty and harmony in an urban landscape. This is why our little shithole apartments in slummy waterbug-infested buildings sell for over $600,000.
Well we’ve never been to Atlanta but from most of the comments here it seems as if we aren’t missing much. NYC is by far the best city in this country and for us personally we will rather live in a smaller house than a large house in a dead & barren place. Love driving but only as a recreation so traffic will simply rule out Atlanta or even LA.
Our salary will increase by 30% anywhere in the South but $$ isn’t everything. Having said that the AMT and city taxes are killing us…we don’t even look at the pay stubs anymore:(
Bob Marvin why was it so bad in ATL? I know the folks there are lousy supporters of their sports teams.
some of u morons need to have ur heads examined.”Atlanta is a hell hole”.Atlanta is a solid city with a crime rate about half of what it is in Brooklyn.
“The Atlanta Beltine has been proposed and is well on its way toward implementation”
Excellent news. All cities need to expand mass transit options. But with shattered municipal budgets and (admittedly temporarily) cheap gasoline, will this happen any time soon?
I ran both the NY and ATL divisions of a Co. and when I would have a meeting in NY we’d go to the conference room I’d pound out the meeting have 2 or 3 questions and then everyone would get things done quickly with few speed bumps.
I would schedule 2X the amount of time for the ATL office and maybe it’s because I was speaking NY English instead of Southern English but I would be met with blank stares and NO questions….That is until they couldn’t get the work done and I’d have to coach each of them through things step by step. There was also quite a bit of sexism and it took me quite a while to earn the respect of the men in the office who initially referred to me behind my back as “That Yankee Bitch”. I kid you not! It was unbearably infuriating.
Thank god we were able to grow that office large enough for me to unload them onto someone from ATL.
I wouldn’t move there if you tripled my last salary.
Seems as though all of your heads need to be pulled a wee bit further out of NY…
1) Who cares if they are from L.I., or not…
2) This might just be a very good investment for this family. Atlanta has been growing as the ‘commercial hub’ of the south. Traffic is horrendous, yes…. but, this is not going unnoticed by city officials and others. The Atlanta Beltine has been proposed and is well on its way toward implementation (22 miles of rail that circles the center of the city- and more). At least it’s a step in the right direction for Atlanta. http://www.atlantada.com/adaInitiatives/beltline.jsp
I hope they won’t mind the high crime rates and lack of culture.
I once had the misfortune of living in Atlanta for a few months–most awful place I’ve ever been in for any extended period.