TripAdvisor: Atlanta is One of “Least Favorite” U.S. Cities
Decatur Metro | June 25, 2009Saw this earlier this morning, but Eric motivates me to post.
The Atlanta Business Chronicle was the first to report the results of a recent TripAdvisor poll that ranked Atlanta along with both Detroit and Los Angeles as site visitors “least favorite” U.S. city. However, we did receive props for having the “best accent” (not that THAT helps me at all).
What? Just because we don’t have waterfront and destroyed our historic fabric AND embraced brutalism and sprawl like it was going out of style?
Come on guys! What about our highly ironic aquarium?!
Hurry up Beltline…
What a shock! You’d think Detroit would be ranked higher than that, being so close to Canada and all.
That’s probably because tourists are outnumbered by homeless at many destinations. So I think the survey is unfair – if they polled homeless people we’d be one of the favorites.
san francisco’s homeless ginormous population put the ATL in the bush league. and, of course, SF ranks at the top of this survey as well as almost every other.
but don’t let that stop you from picking on the homeless. or letting that southern hospitality shine thru.
You’re right, but I think E was making a legitimate point and not simply ‘bashing the homeless’. While SF certainly has a greater homeless population than Atlanta, they also have a higher number of tourists. And this is all in a much more densely populated area. Point is, if one visits SF or DC they’ll see more panhandling, but at the same time they’re surrounded by so many other people that the proportion of homeless to tourist/resident is much, much lower.
That lower concentration helps diminish the negative perceptions (crime, general personal discomfort, guilt, whatever) that, accurate or not, one might get while visiting many parts of Atlanta.
You’re right, Robbie. E wasn’t picking on the homeless. It’s a perception issue rather than a total numbers issue. Tourists don’t consult crime stats to determine whether or not they feel safe. They go out on the sidewalk and get a sense — fair or unfair — for themselves.
I was in downtown Houston once on a Saturday. By comparison to Atlanta or SF, the city probably had fewer homeless overall but they quite literally were the only other people out on the sidewalks. It did not *feel* inviting.
Well, you totally missed the point, but whateva.
Possible future blog topic for DM – why don’t we have any homeless in Decatur? We’ve got the MARTA, the walkable community with lots of the sweet, delicious foot traffic that panhandlers love, we are intown and rub shoulders with homeless havens like L5P – why no homeless here? It has to be about enforcement, probably also the lack of any homeless shelters that would attract more of them. And I guess if you think about it, Druid Hills acts as a buffer between us and the homeless corridor on Ponce from Moreland to downtown.
If you think Decatur doesn’t have homeless, then you aren’t paying attention.
I see homeless people every time I walk around the Decatur Square, E. Are you blind?
Should we make a distinction between panhandlers and the homeless?
Both categories are filled with people who don’t care to work or have a place to live–that is, they choose to be that way. However, there is a very small percentage of the homeless that really are just down on their luck and wish they had a job and a place to live, and it’s these people we should pity and not bash–the other people are lazy, byproducts of society.
I know of at least two homeless men in Oakhurst right now.
Yeah? Back in ’91 I knew a whole church courtyard full of men, women, girls and boys that were homeless. We all ate for free on Thursdays and Saturdays at a church in Austin, Texas.
Most were there for free food (like myself and two other white middle-class 19 year-olds), some were there for social connections, some were completely out of their minds, and every one of them were sick of looking for work.
What’s your point nelliebelle?
Apparently I’m blind. I’ve lived in L5P and work in downtown ATL, so maybe I’m desensitized to it at low levels, but I just don’t see it much around here.
Brutalism?
Of course this article is correct. Atlanta is not much to visit. New York, by contrast, is a great place to visit. But I’d hate to live in NYC.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brutalist_architecture
And agreed. The needs/wants of a resident couldn’t be more different from the needs/wants of a tourist.
I was going to say the same thing. Atlanta is to be lived in ….not visited.
If you–the general you–have lived in the ATL for more than ten years and know anyone who came here for undergrad or grad school, not too enthusiastic about location, but then upon completing the higher education decided to stay?
On the other hand, I know of some people who came here for college & couldn’t wait to high-tail it back to the northeast or the west coast.
Do Detroit is an even better place to live because tourists don’t like to go there?
I don’t buy this argument.
We’ve got problems as a region, friends.
My husband and I have always said Atlanta is a great place to live, but not a good place to visit. Guess this survey proved us right.
On TripAdvisor.com the most popular things to do in Atlanta (also according to readers) are as follows –
1. Segway Tours
2. The MLK National Historic Site.
3. The Wren’s Nest (Obviously)
Here’s the link: http://tr.im/NotSoHotlanta
Infer from that what you will, but I’m just saying that maybe this is less about scientific inquiry and more about drumming up buzz and traffic.
Lain, it’s up to the Wren’s Nest to start doing Segway Tours of the property. It’s the only way we have a hope of staying ahead of Detroit!
I’d prefer to see Br’er Rabbit riding around the property on the Segway. That would be worth the price of admission.
Most visitors only get to experience downtown ATL. As someone who worked downtown for 20 years, I agree with the low opinion of visitors. If out-of-towners get out of the CBD or Buckhead, say to our town or Va-High, their opinions suddenly change. In fact, I have talked with people visiting downtown Decatur who took MARTA to Decatur in the evenings while visiting ATL, say for a convention. They were all smiling. Downtown they seem too afraid to even make eye contact. Hopefully our downtown promoters are working on a way to draw more visitors to Decatur.
The city should buy a bus, spray paint the logo on the side, and offer free shuttle service from GWCC to Decatur and back every evening.
How about just putting them on the MARTA? The city will pay the round trip fare.
If only we would have only gotten the NASCAR museum. Certainly, the Civil Rights Museum and its reminder of the south’s collective shame will be a winner? Maybe the health museum will have special section on type-II diabetes or the thrill of cancer.. If not, our tourist can always say they loved the World of Coke before skulking over to the Cheetah.
I took some visitors to World of Coke once. Once. It felt like I was paying $15 to sit in an Applebees.
I once took some visitors to the Cheetah, and felt like I was paying 50 dollars to sit
Yet another laugh-out-loud funny from W. Gibbets. Loved it.
Cheers! I’ll buy you a Coke.
Genius! I felt the same way…
If you look at the city’s that are listed as “visitor’s favorites”, they don’t necessarily cater to tourist. But, they have invested in their community and nurtured their own unique qualities. San Francisco didn’t build the Golden Gate bridge as a “tourist attraction”. Its a way to cross the bay. Likewise, with China Town and Fisherman’s wharf (ok, that is a bit of a tourist trap. but, it does have a long storied history). Likewise with NY. The Museum of Natural History and the Met were not build to attract someone from Cleveland. Rather, they were investments in their cultural community that HAPPEN to be also very interesting to guests. Unfortunately, Atlanta has never taken that approach and it’s so dispersed its hard to get a coherent experience. While the Aquarium maybe celebrating its 10 millionth visitor, I wonder how long it will continue to be the “shiny object”. If we focused as much attention on the Atlanta Zoo (it was the shiny object of its time) as we do the Aquarium it would be world class – and more relevant to the community.
Well articulated, CB. Atlanta’s energy is too focused on something a rich guy can brag about or the chamber of commerce can put on their glossies – rather than something that might be a longer-term asset to actual Atlantans. I hope your thoughts will become more prominent in the public consciousness.
Atlanta is not a great place to visit. So what?
Also wholeheartedly agree with your assessment CB.
That’s why I’m a little more excited about the Civil Rights Museum than it sounds like Brad is. Though it won’t draw crowds like the other “shiny” attractions, at least it will add to and support the history of the city.
I think you are talking about investing in and sustaining the community. It seems like that is what Decatur (as well as some of the other smaller cities within the metro ATL area, like Roswell) does best.
I travel alot and when I tell people that I have a house here I often am told that they’ve visited Atlanta for this or that convention and spent time downtown and thought it was “nice.” (emphasizing nice with a high pitch at the end as they are trying to not say what they really think) Downtown Atlanta is awful. I realize there are alot of people that have moved down there and are trying to spiff it up. No offense but whatever they try, it still seems to remain ugly. If most knew that midtown was a stone’s throw way and could vist Piedmont Park they would have a different opinion about central Atlanta. Compared to most cities, Piedmont Park is an oasis and one of the most beautiful central parks for a city comparable in size in the US.
I also tell people that Atlanta is often called the “City in the Forest” or the “City of Trees” (you wouldn’t get this if you only went to a convention downtown) and huge swaths of land in the central and eastern parts of the city are still heavily forested with old growth (unlike other parts of the city that have been completely clear cut for sprawl). When I came here as a young man 10 or 12 years ago and flew into Hartsfield, I was blown away by the tree canopy draped across the city. No other city in the world has this. I was also blown away going down Ponce on my first trip from Decatur to midtown. We take it for granted living here, but whenever someone comes to visit me here for the first time and I take them on that drive down Ponce… they are very impressed.
Thank goodness the beltline is on its way. This city needs it.
Atlanta’s most recent investment was the $8 million it spent on “branding” and the resultant logo in near-Coca-Cola red. What a travesty.
I moved to Atanta precisely because it isn’t a great place to visit. When I lived in NYC and DC, I got so sick of tourists! it didn’t matter that I lived close to the Archives or the Met, it was constantly overrun with tourists. Parents in town over the weekend? Sorry but hotels all booked because ‘fill in the blank’ was in town EVERY WEEKEND. Atlanta/Decatur is a great place to live – we have reasonable driving distances to beach and mountains, an excellent airport to fly direct all over the world, sports teams, learning insitutions and some man-made curiousities to import some variety.
Plus, I think tourism isn’t a good ‘industry’ to rely on. So many things can influence people to change their mind about your destination (economy, gas prices, natural disasters, etc.), that it isn’t worth the ramp up. Let’s find more enduring ways to attract that lost revenue and let other iconic cities have the tourists.
I always try to convince my visitors to take the bombing tour of Atlanta: Centennial Park, the Temple, the Other Side (or where it used to be). Maybe tool around town for race riot landmarks. If they’re feeling ambitious, I might suggest the Marietta Square for the Leo Frank lynching site.
For some reason, I don’t get as many out of town visitors as I once did.
But in all seriousness, Atlanta has a habit of tearing (or burning) down its history and putting up a disneyfied version of it and wondering why folks look at it with such disdain.
Good thing I don’t live in Atlanta. I live in Decatur.
Yeah, right, writerchad.
Unfortunately, Decatur cannot just wall itself off from Atlanta. We are a part of Atlanta whether we like it or not. As its fortunes rise or fall, so does Decatur.
The greater Atlanta area is a great place to live, but not a great place for tourism. Much agreed. While there is much to see, it is very spread out and difficult to get to unless you have wheels. Our downtown city boards up in the evenings, and there is little to do. SF, NY, CHI, WAS, BOS all have wonderful subway systems with great downtown living near shops, restaurants, and tourist attractions. Detroit and LA are similar in respects to ATL as far as the bad aspects of the city go for both tourism and downtown residents alike.
I think the quick counter-justification that Atlanta is great place to live is suspect. Atlanta has some of the worst air, worst traffic and highest crime rates in the country. The racial tension and balkanization of the city is a throw back in time. Hartsfield is a chaotic CF. The only reason it is busiest airport in the country because every other city of similar size has more than one airport. Atlanta’s parks are pathetic. We have one of the lowest park areas per person and per square mile of any city in the country. Compared to Central, Golden Gate, DC’s myriad urban parks, or River Walk in tiny San Antonio, Piedmont Park is laughable.
Atlanta has cheap housing, lots of jobs and is the only city in the southeast that comes close to the title “cosmopolitan”. But if Atlanta is to become a great place to live or visit, we need to set our standards higher or forever be comfortable with the relative comparative cliche: “at least were not Detroit.”
So….move. Most folks around here love their city and are happy being Atlantans. If you don’t like it, leave….[edit: no personal attacks]
You know, I think you both have very good points.
And god forbid that anyone says atlanta is anything less than heaven. Need some southern hospitality? – try a critique of atlanta. Is it hot and humid today? Better not say anything. Otherwise, you will be asked to move.
Atlanta, love it or leave it!
Ha! Yeah because criticism is so rare on blogs.
+1…. we have the thread winner.
people that are here and like it can’t be convinced otherwise, but, lets be serious.
atlanta is where “mediocrity comes to live”
we have doctors, they are ok, nothing great
we have resteraunts, they are ok, nothing great
we have an art museum, it is ok, nothing great
we have marta, it is ok, nothing great
we have bookstores, ok nothing great (ok they suck)
we have archictecture, its ok nothing great
we have local politics, its ok nothing great
we have local schools, they’re ok, noting great
we have a local newspaper, its ok nothing great (actually the ajc is one of the worst papers in the country.)
we have radio stations, they are ok but nothing great
we have trafiic, its ok but nothing great (see how chicago handles the air and water show, a cubs game, and the taste of chicago on the same day-traffic here dosn’t even follow insane non-linear fluid dynamics-the drvers are completely irrational. its not that they are bad. they are maddeingly slow and idiotic)
come on people, its a circle, inside a circle, inside a cirlcle. you can’t remove decatur from atlanta, and atlanta from georgia. is this a forward thinking state? loves education and worker’s rights? does it celebrate its culture and history? is it well run?
of course you don’t crap where you live and say this place sucks-i don’t think it sucks, but yeesh, what unused potential.
for those of you who say “move”-sure. most people have to live where they have a job. of course paris would be cool but not practical. but yeesh, hang around palo alto, the back bay, lincoln park, georgetown, greenwich village, providence, austin, chapel hill, madison, seattle, ann arbor, ithaca, albany, the complete states of main, vermont and new hampshire to see nice places to live. yeah all these places have their issues (and CA of course is broke), but defend ATL as a nice place to live? its ok, but nothing great.
I was actually thinking about this sort of comparison recently, ie Decatur to Vermont, NH, Maine.
Yes, all the aforementioned places are near utopias of fine living, but I sometimes can’t help but think Decatur in some ways benefits from it’s “island in a sea of sprawl” status. Each of those great places to live share the risk of any utopia: they become isolated, detached and no longer in touch with the rest of the struggling country.
Vermont may be “localism” at it’s best outside of Europe, but will they be the one’s that find the solutions to the larger issues of sprawl and transportation that plaque our nation’s cities? I doubt it. They’ve already moved past that to other issues that affect them, like how to work in tandem within their natural environments.
Decatur is plagued by, yet benefits from, being a city within a city in a conservative state. Our leaders and planners have had to learn to deal with the staunchest opponents and harshest critics…to survive crappy planning and revive from poor past decisions. We have to think outside the Utopian box, because we live in the real, evolving, metropolitan world. And it’s in these places, where the challenges are greatest, where the solutions also occur. And lord knows, our 21st century cities need a new set (or old set) or solutions.
I’m certainly not arguing that any of the places you mentioned aren’t really nice places to live. Or that Atlanta doesn’t have it’s fair share of problems. But I think that even as we pull our hair out at some of the inane decisions made by our metro-leaders, we should take a little pride in knowing that we live in a place that could one day be seen as ground-zero for addressing the needs of the American city in the 21st century.
Pie-in-the-sky? Absolutely. But that’s the proactive attitude you need if you’re interested in coming up with solutions.
San Antonio’s “River Walk” is just a touristy development along a small river that happens to run through the middle of town. It is not, essentially, a “park”. Been there, done that. I was not impressed. I can think of dozens of parks in Decatur and along Ponce on the way to ATL, all beautiful, serene, and walkable. Maybe you need to get out your walking shoes.
Atlanta is a terrible place to visit because it isn’t walkable. I can go to any number of US cities on business – from Boston to Minneapolis to Nashville, check into my downtown hotel, throw my bags in the room, and then go walk around looking for a cool place to eat or drink. Try doing that from any hotel in Buckhead or downtown. If you don’t get hit by a car you may find your way to Cheesecake Factory. And unfortunately, as long as most visitors are accomodated in those locations, the problem will persist.
Oh – and also – the taxi system here stinks. You’d think with only one giant north south road you could get a cab without having to call one on the phone.
I don’t own a car and rely on MARTA, my feet, and plenty of cabs. I don’t know about the cab situation in downtown ATL (probably not good) but in Va-High and Ponce High there are plenty of cabs, 24 hours a day, and you can hail one from the street. I do it many times. So there.
In comment to above…
I have to agree on the air quality. This is is huge. How to fix it? I don’t know. Alternative energy led by responsible corporations is probably the only way.
Traffic? Who doesn’t have bad traffic these days. Seriously. Go to any prosperous medium sized or large city in this country and traffic is a mess. Anywhere.
“racial tension and balkanization of the city is a throw back in time.”- sure, there is still alot of racial tension here…but in contrast to many places I’ve visited or lived, this region at least recognizes it and does not gloss over it like they do in places like the midwest or northeast. There are idiotic racial quadrants here in the city, but spending time in midtown gives me some hope. Go to Piedmont Park, go to Whole Foods on Ponce, go to any restaurant or club in the midtown area. Honestly, I’ve never seen such an interracial environment. (including alot of interracial couples) I had a friend visiting from NYC recently for the first time and he observed and commented on this right away.
“Atlanta’s parks are pathetic. We have one of the lowest park areas per person and per square mile of any city in the country. “- this is primarily because of south Atlanta and Buckhead. (Buckhead being the worst) Take those 2 areas out of the mix and we have an incredible amount of greenspace. Freedom Park is 207 acres, Piedmont Park is 185 acres, all the greenspace around the Ponce de Leon corridor, the Beltline will add 1200 acres (some of which is already parks), Grant Park 140 acres, Chastain Park is 260+ acres, Goldsboro Park (at Candler), and our own up and coming Glenlake Park. This is what I can think of off the top of my head. Its not perfect, but there is some pretty impressive space out there. (btw- Golden Gate is on the fringe of SF and always foggy and what park in DC matches or surpasses the quality of Piedmont? The tourist monument parks??) I am enjoying the greenspace here. The northeast citys have decent parks but because of the density, they are much, much more crowded and in many ways not as nice. Piedmont Park blows away the Boston Common believe it or not.
Also, I am managing here without a car. Its not always easy, but its possible and zipcars are available when necessary. I am running across more and more people that are trying this in Atlanta. The more people that give it a shot (if its possible for them) the better the infrastructure networks will get. I’ll be the guy walking around with the t-shirt that says “Breathe easy…One less car.”
“if Atlanta is to become a great place to live or visit, we need to set our standards higher”- vvery true.
Good points on the parks situation in ATL. Could the deficit on the south and west side have anything to do with our racial history? Piedmont is a treasure. Did you know that the Landscape architecture was originally by Fredrick law Olmsted? Possibly the most herald landscape architect of the 20th century. The Conservancy has done an incredible job bringing back the park from the disaster of city government control..
I really like living in Atlanta, especially Decatur, but see why we aren’t an instant tourist draw. I’ve lived in several of the “ideal” cities above, including the Bay Area, northern CA wine country, DC and Chapel Hill. I can honestly say that living in Atlanta, with Decatur as the base, brings together much of the best bits of those places (ok, minus the vines and tastings). Atlanta has much of the city assets I enjoy such as major league and college sports, plays, numerous great restaurants and music venues, and wonderful neighborhood commercial districts. And as mentioned above, all in a gorgeous tree canopy. Yes, the Bay Area & DC have much of the above (and stronger on the arts), but in Atlanta I can actually get out and enjoy any activity I want to do without hassle or fear that I won’t get a ticket/reservation. ITP Atlanta is an incredibly easy place to live. I also find living here a bit to be like living in a small town- in no time at all, I was running into people I knew, and always able to meet new people and friends. It is also amazingly easy to get involved in Atlanta, in which ever area you choose, and make a real impact. None of these benefits are things that show up on the tourism monitor…
If I didn’t live in Atlanta, and I was considering cities to visit, it would be near the bottom of my list. And I say this as a native who was born in Decatur 40 years ago. The things that Atlanta is known for are problematic. Gone with the Wind? Not exactly a point of pride to educated people. Stone Mountain? Same thing. (though it is ironic in a positive sense that this memorial to losers is now surrounded by some of the winners in society: upper-middle class blacks prospering in the shadow of this former KKK beacon)
The aquarium? A decent attraction, but you could plop it down in any city in the country. Which is one of the main problems with Atlanta as a tourist city: its past is less than glorious, and its present is too corporate and homogenized. Frankly, however, I prefer the homogeneity to the often embarrassing attempts at cultural preservation (like the rebel flag fight).
Atlanta’s good history- first black mayor in the South, MLK, etc.- is just not the sort of thing most tourists are looking to explore, but it is something to be proud of and to build on. I say let’s work on making Atlanta better place to live for its residents and not worry too much about tourism, except in areas where the interests would overlap-better public transit, for example.