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.
This. I moved to Silicon Valley from Huntsville, AL (< 1hr drive from KKK birthplace, snake handlers, and 'To Kill a Mockingbird'). I've heard more racist and sexist comments from educated people in SV than I did living in AL. Sure, you have your fair share of stereotypical rednecks in AL, but the vast majority of the population is mostly past that. SV just has a bay segregating them instead of city blocks.
My coworkers expressed disgust that they might have trouble in AL going around the office proudly proclaiming they were atheists. I told them that CA had a similar paradigm too: Fox News.
...That being said: Atlanta is a cautionary tale of how laze-faire central planning doesn't work.
Guns are a good illustration of this. Where I grew up, kids have been known to get guns for Christmas so they can go deer hunting. It's probably not the safest thing but it's not really a problem. Here in NYC though it's completely different. A stray bullet has way too many opportunities to hit something important. Not to mention, all minor conflicts from people living so close together.
Yeah, I remember during HS students and teachers comparing hunting rifles in the school parking lot (they had them in their trunks since they intended to start hunting after school let out). Every place on earth has its "no big deal" that horrifies someone else.
I think you're so right about that. I can definitely imagine just about all of us overestimate our own tolerance. Something to definitely consider. I recently had a chance to see the Dalai Lama during his visit to Atlanta, and he talked a lot about the benefits to us of actively practicing compassion. Something that probably most of us, including me, don't do enough of day to day.
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.
I'd love to see these for a variety of cities. One way to put one together for New Orleans: reach out to other tech people you know there, and collaborate. That's what I did for Atlanta, and I got a much richer set of pros & cons than I would if I had done it independently. The little bit of time spent eliminating dupes and organizing it thematically, was well worth it. If you write one for NOLA, do let me know, and I'll link to it.
I'd also love to see one for Austin, TX. And one for NYC.
Yeah, I was surprised about that, too! But a fun mini-project, and shows what banding together can do. Perhaps the best result is writing that post got me to surface from a ton of work I've been doing, and get onto HN! I can pretty quickly tell that there are some awesome people here.
"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.
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
> 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.
Precisely. It's the same here in Padova, where it gets humid and foggy in the winter. It usually doesn't dip too far below freezing, but the humidity chills you to the bone. Where we lived in Innsbruck, Austria was much colder, but it was less humid so it didn't sink in the way the wet cold does.
And as a native of Oregon... yeah, rain and 5 C is about the worst thing out there. You simply can't do stuff outdoors in that kind of weather and stay warm for very long, no matter how much fancy technical gear you pile on: the rain eventually soaks in and you start getting cold. Bleagh....
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.
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.
Buckhead is a really great area. If I had to compare it to somewhere in the SF/SV area, it would probably be most comparable to Palo Alto. I've been in Atlanta twice over the past year, and spent most of each trip in Buckhead. There are tons of great restaurants, but my two picks so far would be Woodfire Grill for dinner and Buckhead Diner for brunch. I really can't say enough good things about Woodfire Grill -- it was probably the best meal I've ever had.
Yep! That's why I went there the first time. It was amazing, so I went back again on my next trip to Atlanta. Interestingly, he was in the "kitchen" (at the woodfire grill, actually) cooking both times -- most well-known chefs are more restaurateurs than chefs.