Moving to Atlanta

[Zuuswa]

Hey all! I have been considering a move to Atlanta, GA with my girlfriend as of late, pending her acceptance into Savannah College of Art and Design. I am hoping to be able to join the GA LoCo team as well, and possibly meet other enthusiastic Ubuntu-ers. I do have a few questions about the city though. Mostly, is there a section of the city that has affordable living for a student? Preferably close to Savanna's Atlanta campus (I'm not familiar with the city at all), and also rather cheap and safe . . . I have heard there is some sort of public transportation system that Atlanta has that works rather well, but I would like to know from the residents which places would be better to search online for apartments. (I dont want to end up miles away from campus in a bad neighborhood). Perhaps somebody knows of some quality co-operative housing around, that would be great. Also, are there many organic grocers in the area? I would prefer to buy organic and local food, as I am an ueber hippy. Anyways, thanks for your interest and hopefully I will be joining the Atlanta community soon.

[boredandblogging.com]

Hi Zuuswa, SCAD is located in midtown, which is definitely not a cheap place to live especially for a student. The transit system is a bit tricky. I believe the Arts Center Marta station is close to SCAD, but Marta may not be the most convenient method of transport.

Here is the map of the rail system: http://www.itsmarta.com/getthere/sch...index-rail.htm. It all depends on where you live. There are buses, so it might not be too bad for you. Seriously, the city is very spread out, its a car city.

As far as housing goes, there are a lot of apartment complexes around. I can't vouch for any online service since I've never used one...but I might recommend promove. Basically, you walk into a promove store, tell them where you want to live and how much you want to spend and they give you list of options and they call the apartment complexes and get you prices. It may not be the absolute best deal, but its not bad either. I would suggest looking at the home pages of colleges in Atlanta and searching for off-campus living. There are a lot of college students here, so you aren't alone.

As far as organic food, Whole Foods has quite a few stores around town. Also check out the Dekalbs Farmer market.

Check us out on IRC, we can probably help you out more.

[Zuuswa]

Wow, over 150+ different bus routes . . . seems quite intimidating, especially compared to my current towns 20 bus routes.

[rudder]

Wow, over 150+ different bus routes . . . seems quite intimidating, especially compared to my current towns 20 bus routes.

BoredandBlogging.com is right... Atlanta is very much a car town. I know some folks who went to SCAD in Midtown and found decent living around the Freedom Pkwy area... there are a lot of houses there that people have converted for renting and such. Here is a google maps link that kind of shows where I am talking about:

http://www.google.com/maps?f=d&hl=en...,0.628281&om=1

The general rule of thumb in Atlanta is that living inside the perimeter (that highway that runs around the city; it's called Interstate 285) is very expensive vs. living outside the perimeter. Also, just an FYI: Atlanta is a city that swells during the day... many, many people live outside the perimeter and commute each day. I live in Villa Rica, GA and commute in at about 40 miles one way. That is on the extreme end of things but an hour commute between work and home isn't all that uncommon.

[jhenager]

Our public transit sucks for me. I would love to take the bus or train. Unfortunately, a half hour ride in my car would translate into a 4 hour bus ride with five stops and about $8 fares.
It is no wonder we have a traffic problem. Cities like Boston and San Francisco are light years ahead of us. MARTA is pathetic.
As for affordable housing, I would recommend finding one of those free apartment booklets available just about anywhere, and look for a locator service. When I moved here, I used one and they drove us around to many different apartment complexes until we found one we liked and could afford. It didn't cost anything. I believe they get some kind of commission from the landlords, but I don't know.
The Marietta area is where I ended up living for a few years. I think the rent was about $600-650 a month for a two bedroom apt.

[boredandblogging.com]

Atlanta is simply too spread out for public transport. There are no natural barriers to the city. You need relatively high population density to support public transport and we don't have it. The wide open spaces is one of the reasons people move to Atlanta, you can buy that big house on a big chunk of land or whatever at an affordable price (hence spreading out the city even more, etc, etc).

Pulling up numbers from wikipedia, look at the densities:

SF: 15,834/sq mi
Boston: 11,543/sq mi
Atlanta: 3,162.4/sq mi

This is with all 3 cities having 4-5 million people in their metro area.

This isn't to say that MARTA is well run by any means, but its not completely their problem.

[JReagan1990]

lol. yeah. MARTA is always an interesting ride.

[daynah]

I'm going to go out to eat with some of my hippy friends soon and I'll ask them where they get their real hippy food. I say real hippy food because Whole Foods does have organic food but... Whole Foods is catered to like the new, up coming hippies. Like the soccer moms that do yoga and really just care about their health.

Not that they're any less of hippies! There's a billion and two (exact number there) type of hippies. But that's kinda what I think Whole Foods is advertising too. Whole Foods is also very expensive (soccer mom hippies can afford it).

If you'd like to get in touch with some non druggie hippies, and some soccer mom hippies (moving to a new place can be scary with no friends), try going to some classes at meditationforeveryone.org. The closest one to you will be the Sandy Springs one. If you wanna meet there with me some day, just pm me. Last time I went (and I'm sure they still do this, I've been too busy and ill to go), on Sundays they would have a class and afterwards a hippy brunch. They're also just about to open up a "World Peace Cafe" where the people who work there are all volunteers, so there's higher profits and the proceeds go to charity. Hippy food.

I live in Marietta, but am in Kennesaw like 80% of the time (work, school, and boyfriend), those are both on the north west of Atlanta about 30 minutes, so I don't know much about the place. I do know you MUST go to The Fox Theatre, alright? Just see a movie there or something. It's a drop dead gorgeous building.

And everyone does drive into atlanta, if you're living IN Atlanta, I would try to use Marta. Traffic is heinus. Like... more heinus than heinus. So heinus if you get killed on Marta you'll think, "well at least I didn't have to deal with Atlanta traffic" as you die. Only sad, sad, people who have to commute into Atlanta (everyone in North Georgia over 23) HAVE to deal with the traffic. Since you wont have to, don't.

My friend rides a bike.

[Zuuswa]

thanks, I think my bicycle shall prove invaluable then. Daynah, I might just take you up on that offer, if/when we go down there to visit. And I definately do not relate to the 'Soccer Mom' hippies. I have more of a 'live free' attitude, so it would be great to learn about a good local organic food store (local as in the food is grown locally, or at least very close). I like to meet the guy who is growing my food, and have a beer and a smoke with him if possible.
You all make the Marta train line sound rather risky . . . does that mean it is mainly used by shady-type people and isnt very safe? And I can already fathom the logistics hell from the bus lines just by looking at the system route map.
Anyways, thank you all for your input!

[volfro]

You should definitely check out housingmaps.com. It's a mashup of craigslist and Google Maps, searchable by price, location, and size of homes. Searches not only Atlanta, but also the surrounding Metro areas. Pretty great.