Comments on: Why Doesn’t Atlanta Have More Neighborhood Cafes?

By: Revenue-Negative Household (a.k.a., My unruly brood is here to clog your sidewalks and erode your tax base.)

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 20:59:54 +0000

zee scattered, zee smothered, zee covered …

By: Greg Coleson

Greg Coleson — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 19:10:16 +0000

Paris/Brooklyn/Melbourne look the way they do because the areas you are talking about were developed before the car and before the idea of zoning was in wide force. I think many neighborhoods in Atlanta would benefit from less massive zoning. In the past (say pre 1900) where a cafe went was more of a neighborhood consensus. If someone opened up a cafe and it pissed everyone in the neighborhood off it would close from lack of business (only people in the hood would go the the cafe because no cars). Most areas developed post WWII in Atlanta have 2+ square miles without anything but houses. Look at everything north of N. Decatur Rd. in google maps. Then look at Decatur and see how many businesses fit in 4 square miles. Check out City LIfe by Witold Rybczynski ( he has some other good books also) for a good general overview.

By: aquariumdrinker

aquariumdrinker — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:00:13 +0000

There’s one more thing. Having now read Rodell’s blog post, I think she was kidding, or going for satire or something. The references to “a charcuterie” and “croque madame” are the tells. If you’re seriously looking to gather support for a position, you don’t go around saying things like “and why can’t I get a good charcuterie or croque madame in this one horse town?”

By: aquariumdrinker

aquariumdrinker — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 15:50:41 +0000

Because we still have Treme episodes on the DVR that we haven’t seen yet and now we have to contend with the return of the Walking Dead. Going to neighborhood cafes is for broke-ass Parisians who can’t afford to stay home and watch middlebrow drama.

In seriousness (but I was totally serious before), Candler Park has a little cluster of joints at McLendon and Clifton that are not totally divorced from Rodell’s description of a neighborhood cafe.

Oh, also, the average US work week is like twice as long as the average French work week. So the French are arguably much more in need of places to sit around and drink wine.

By: TeeRuss

TeeRuss — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 14:30:45 +0000

Why doesn’t Paris have more Waffle Houses?

Why doesn’t Melbourne have more taquerias?