aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Saturday, November 25, 2006

Atlanta is cool

I had dinner at Dish the other night. With a filmmaker friend and his wife visiting from New York. Atlanta is young and hip. I know that it’s true; the Times says so today:

Some cities will do anything they can think of to keep young people from fleeing to a hipper town. [...]

[A] report released this week by the Metropolitan Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, which showed Atlanta leading the pack among big cities, while other metro areas, like Philadelphia, hemorrhaged young people from 1990 to 2000. (In this competition, surveys that make a city look good are a favorite opening salvo.)

In that decade, the Atlanta study said, the number of 25- to-34-year-olds with four-year college degrees in the city increased by 46 percent, placing Atlanta in the top five metropolitan areas in terms of growth rate, and a close second to San Francisco in terms of overall numbers. Charlotte, N.C., also outperformed Atlanta, with a growth rate of 57 percent, the second highest in the country after Las Vegas.

Atlanta a close second to San Francisco? Around here they say that Atlanta’s not part of Georgia. And there they hesitate to venture outside the perimeter:

Atlanta has some strong advantages, of course. There are some 45 colleges and universities in the metro area. The Cartoon Network is based here, as are scores of companies in the technology and entertainment sectors. The music industry is another draw for the creative class. And the city has large international and gay populations, considered strong indicators for popularity with the young and restless.