Atlanta. The home of the Braves. The southern city of hospitality. The land of endless Waffle Houses on every street. And recently, as always, the place where the weather changes so drastically from day to day, that the city’s weather has been diagnosed with a bipolar disorder. Also known as my home and the city I’ve spent the past 19 (almost 20!) years in. Well… technically Atlanta. We say that so we don’t have to explain that we came from one of the suburban cities outside of the Perimeter.
The Love-Hate Relationship
Growing up in the suburbs, I never really experienced the actually city of Atlanta other than the occasional errand here and there, so I thought that “Atlanta” was boring and dull. The people were closed-minded, and there was nothing to do. I thought that going to college, I’d finally be able to escape the 18 years I had spent growing up in “Atlanta,” but I soon found out that the Hope/Zell Miller scholarship would keep me in the city’s grasp for 4 more years (or 5 or 6 or 7… it’s Tech, you never know). Devastated that I wasn’t going to be going to my dream school in California, I grudgingly chose Tech, knowing that it’d be the most financially smart choice. I started college with the mindset that I’d be stuck with the same people for the rest of my life. The people in the suburbs that I thought were “Atlantans.”
That’s the “hate” side of my Atlanta. Here’s what’s changed since then:
I started off freshman year with a “I’m here because it’s cheap, everyone at Tech is awkward, school is depressing and hard, I don’t want to be here” mindset. Of course, that got my freshman, noob-like self nowhere. It was when I went abroad to Barcelona the summer after freshman year that everything changed. Even though I absolutely fell in love with that city, I came to love my own city a little more.
Taking an architecture class on cities and what makes them successful, I learned a lot more about Atlanta than I thought I would. Because Barcelona is structured so methodologically, our class concentrated on its great transportation system, the cultural/historical buildings, and the people-friendly layout of the city in general. This also included bashing on Atlanta’s horrible transportation system (MARTA honestly doesn’t get you anywhere useful except the airport), the lack of historical architecture, and the un-walkable layout of the city. The point of the class was to see why Barcelona was such a booming success of a tourist city, and pretty much was supposed to show why Atlanta sucked. The lesson I learned at the end of the course was completely different.
Why were people bashing on how much Atlanta sucked? Even though it did fail in some big areas to classify it as a “great” city, there were still lots a great perks to the city I called home. We’re the home to the Coca-Cola factory and the 2nd largest aquarium in the world. We’re the birthplace of the civil rights movement in America. We have the world’s largest drive-in restaurant–even though Varsity honestly isn’t that great. If there was no Atlanta in Georgia, then Georgia would just be another Alabama.
I learned that even though Atlanta wasn’t as thoroughly thought through in its building process as Barcelona, that’s what made it different. We’re that underdog city that’s on the rise. We’re a city that has been growing out of the close-minded ideas that shrouded our growth, and now we’re accepting of all changes. We’re racially diverse while we keep our southern hospitality intact. We’ve also come a long way to accept all types of sexuality, which can be seen in the large gay community that we have today. If you don’t already know, we’re a growing tech city that is a top start-up hub. This has given growth to the multitude of start-ups everywhere, including our very own RadiusOnline! And of course, we’re the best.
Through all the bashing that we did over the summer, I only came to find more excuses to love Atlanta. We are the little guy that’s trying to define ourselves in a world full of cities that got a head start. If you end up becoming a dweller of the city, you come to find the hidden coffee shops, the hole-in-the-wall restaurants, the mystical boutiques, and the quaint patches of nature scattered throughout the city. Going to college in the real Atlanta, I’ve met the most amazing and diverse and open-minded peers that have been pushing me to grow in every way. “Atlanta” became Atlanta; a place that I can call home.
It’s days like today that I fall a little harder for Atlanta. As the bipolar weather turned once again, we were blessed with seventy degree weather and clear skies. With the top down on my friend’s convertible, the EDM music loud, and the wind in our hair, we soaked in the sun today, driving through the city and taking random turns in order to get lost. We ended up at Willy’s, grabbed some good Mexican food, walked out to Piedmont Park, sat on the grassy hills, people-watched while chowing down, climbed some trees like kids, and hopped back in the car for some more joy riding. Completely lost in the city, we had permanent smiles plastered on our faces–just a bunch of teenagers blasting music and speeding down a street full of hipsters and their hipster businesses. Of course, we found our way home by searching for the trusty golden pencil in the sky–our beacon and symbol of home. A pencil that to me signifies the beauty of the city (while meaning something completely different to my dad).
Angela
Online Marketing Intern