anyone else live in Atlanta......and hate it!

It used to be a good place to live, now everyones moving here, and the city can't handle it! it went from 3mil to 5 mil in 10 years(thats not counting the estimated 2 mil illegal aliens ) 10 of 40 fastest growing US counties are in metro Atlanta. I really wouldn't mind the expansion if it was at a slower pace! mass transit is a joke and most expansion is from outlying counties, so traffic is terrible.. my 45 - 50 min. commute 5 years ago is now 1.5 hours plus , AND I live west of the city, the least populated side of town. but its not just traffic, its city services, police and fire, checking out at the grocery store.etc. I left NYC as a young man, looking for a better place to raise a family. at this pace ATL and NYC will have many of the same problems in about 10-15 years, especially with civic leaders seeing only dollar signs when pursuing new industries. these leaders have never heard of growth management., I75 through Cobb county is slated to be expanded to 23 lanes(400 ft wide.)... and its not the busiest highway in the city!! you can't discourage people from moving here, but with a little foresight, we can properly manage the limited area resources.

sorry for the rant, just a bad day!

 

An aside, perhaps . . . slightly on topic but outdated by a few decades . . . at any rate forgive me, for I'm tending to get nostalgic with age . . .

I don't live in Atlanta . . . and in fact was only there one time, for a few hours. It was in March of 1980, and I was on my way to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas for basic training. Atlanta was a 2 hour lay-over while a change of aircraft was done.

I was afraid to leave the airport area - I was 19 and had not traveled much, and feared getting lost and missing my connecting flight. I sat around in the terminal and just waited. I recall overhearing some airport maintenance workers discussing the fact that the Atlanta airport was rapidly becoming overcrowded and over-worked - while the city itself was "busting at the seams" - apparantly in terms of population growth, now that I look back on it - there was mention of housing additions and such. It's a bit blurry now. I remember it because it was a lively discussion . . . and I was bored.

I've not thought in depth about that random two hours of my life for 27 years . . . your post brought it to mind. If the growth the two unknown fellows were discussing has continued unabated since then, I can more then understand your rant! The growth of the city seemed to be an active topic even in 1980 . . . or so a lone, bored traveler thought, while watching the minutes tick away . . .

Hope you have a better day today, madscott! Be well.

 

I'm probably one of the few left that was born and still live in the area. I don't necessarily hate the traffic because I really don't drive all that far to work or even to shop. That is unless I really want to go to Atlanta or anywhere else. I live on the Northeast side of town, and we do have our fair share of massive traffic.

I remember the days when counties would vote on having the transit system in Atlanta in their areas. All of the ones I can remember voted them down. Now we have (to the best of my knowledge) three different transit systems yet the two new ones in their respective counties only do connect to the "main" system, but that's it. It would have been nice to have one transit system for the metropolitan area, but I doubt we'll ever get that unless someone gets a bright idea on how to pull that one off.

With all the headaches in town, is it any wonder why a lot of natives move further and further away from the city? I know I did for a couple of years, but then I had no choice but to move closer. At least Gwinnett County isn't too bad, but I miss living in the middle of nowhere further Northeast.