Atlaunuh's ovuh!

[Unifour]

I dont really consider, on the east side of Peachtree in Buckhead, the old houses to be mcmansions...put those houses up anywhere in the burbs and they really wouldnt be that big. 200k maybe? 250. but not the 500k monsters put up elsewhere. drive down Lindburgh...those houses seem small.

I like that old picture...wow sidewalks, what a novelty. And I bet they actually went somewhere back then, not just the end of the "neighborhood". Unlike 90% of the development in Gwinnett...

pretty sure Gwinnett will be the slums of the future, save a few pockets.

Gwinnett

I agree with you on that photo. The neighborhood didn't look like the neighborhoods of today. It was a part of the community, tied in with everything else. It wasn't set back in a bunch of cul de sacs or roundabouts. It was integrated into the city fabric, and was made to be a part of it, unlike subdivisions in suburbs where they center around a strip mall and dead end streets and no sidewalks.

I agree with Andrea that growth must occur, and change must also occur. Nothing lasts forever, but we are never going to have an actual society if we continue to build dead end streets and walled communities. That just isn't going to save us from our problems.

[bfermanich]

pretty sure Gwinnett will be the slums of the future, save a few pockets.

Gwinnett

Lil-burn is actually going to be renamed to Lil-Compton.

I can't help but think that Wayne Shackleford and Wayne Hill have really screwed this county into oblivion. They have forever trashed the name "Wayne" for me. Whenever I hear the name "Wayne" I suffer a quick uncontrollable spasm and instantly think of corrupt politicians. I have no respect for these guys. They're probably on a beach somewhere with their old developer-cronies telling stories of how they raped Gwinnett and got rich doing it.

[Newnan]

How about this: How many of you have southern accents?

[ironchapman]

How about this: How many of you have southern accents?

Not me. I've been asked if I'm from several different places, including New York City, Philadelphia and Britain, and Ireland. People looked shocked when I tell them I've lived in Douglasville all my life.

Person: What part of the country are you from?

Me: I've lived in Douglasville, Georgia all of my life.

Person: Really!?! Your accent isn't that bad.

Me: What's so bad about my accent?

But I don't know if the strength of your Southern accent is the best gauge of how "Southern" you are. A lot of my friends and relatives have hardly any accent even though their interests are what would very much be considered "Southern" or "Redneck".

[Andrea]

How about this: How many of you have southern accents?

I don't, even though I grew up here in the 1950's and 60's. Atlanta had a lot of transplants by then, and in those days a southern accent was looked down on by many.

[LizellaJacket]

I have a very thick southern accent. I was born and raised in rural middle Georgia.

[Hybrid0NE]

How about this: How many of you have southern accents?

I can fake a southern accent... sometimes. I've always had people ask where I am from originally, since my upper family tree is rooted above the Mason/Dixon line.

[Lady Celeste]

How about this: How many of you have southern accents?

Okay, I grew up in Dunwoody of Fulton. I have always thought that I had a southern accent....that was until I go to places like NYC or Boston. I can not tell you how many times people there will say "talk with a southern accent." "I am, at least I thought I was," I would rebut. They would always say "you aren't talking with a strong enough southern accent." I don't know what they were expecting but I tell them I am born and bred in the south so I have no idea why I seemingly do not have a more pronounced southern accent. There are certain words that I can say and they will get all excited....especially the men....but most of the time it seems like they are straining to here my southern accent.

Maybe they thought I would sound like Dixie Carter from Designing Women.

Perhaps my parents not being southern doesn't help.

[Andrea]

You know, Celeste, I think people just move around so much these days, plus we are all subject to the homogenizing influences of television and other mass media. I'm just sitting here thinking about the folks in my office, and probably no more than 15-20% of us are Southerners. Of those who are, only a handful have what I'd call a marked Southern accent.

[Lady Celeste]

You know, Celeste, I think people just move around so much these days, plus we are all subject to the homogenizing influences of television and other mass media. I'm just sitting here thinking about the folks in my office, and probably no more than 15-20% of us are Southerners. Of those who are, only a handful have what I'd call a marked Southern accent.

I totally agree Andrea. Growing up in Dunwoody, noone or very few were native southerners anyway. One of my good friends, Petra....well her parents were from Germany. I mean half the time you had to really listen to understand what her mother was talking about...it was like being with my maternal grandfather. Kimberly was from Chicago, Kevin was from Medford New Jersey, Phillip was from Poukeepsie, NY. Kristin was from Kansas...wait, you get the picture...I think there were a handful of us from the south. There was this one girl from Birmingham and I swear if you didn't know any better you would have thought she was from Boston.

Like I said earlier though....my parents were northerners...and my four eldest siblings were all born in New York.

[Newnan]

I totally agree Andrea. Growing up in Dunwoody, noone or very few were native southerners anyway. One of my good friends, Petra....well her parents were from Germany. I mean half the time you had to really listen to understand what her mother was talking about...it was like being with my maternal grandfather. Kimberly was from Chicago, Kevin was from Medford New Jersey, Phillip was from Poukeepsie, NY. Kristin was from Kansas...wait, you get the picture...I think there were a handful of us from the south. There was this one girl from Birmingham and I swear if you didn't know any better you would have thought she was from Boston.

Like I said earlier though....my parents were northerners...and my four eldest siblings were all born in New York.

My mom grew up in Dunwoody just when it was becoming a big transplant community. She said everybody from there was a transplant from somewhere else. That and the fact that her parents were from up north (DC and NYC) kept her from developing much of an accent. My cousins live in Dunwoody and even though their parents have thick suthern twangs they don't have an accent. Even today living in Newnan my mom still has more of a non-regional accent. I know this is crazy but the southern accent seems to be disappearing in some areas of Coweta of "Cayeeta" county.

[ironchapman]

Personally, I still don't quite get what the paranoia is over Atlanta losing her-how to put this-"Southernness". Atlanta will always be a Southern city not only because of its geographic location but also because of its past. Things like Kennesaw Moutain (the battlefield), Stone Mountain (the carving), Sweetwater Creek State Park, the Cyclorama, Gone With the Wind, Martin Luther King, the statue of Henry Woodfin Grady on Marietta Street, the Atlanta History Center, and so on.

Blame it on boosterism (either mine or the chamber of commerce), but Atlanta seems to be more of a trailblazer for the South. Our city seems to have done more to define the image and present the South as a great place to live while not becoming the "New" New England (like Miami) than perhaps any other city(except for, perhaps, Nashville and Memphis' music industries).

[mallguy]

I wouldn't worry about Atlanta no longer being Southern. Southern culture, like any culture, changes over time, regardless of who moves into the South, so Southern culture would not remain frozen in time with heavy accents and the like even if nobody moved to the South. But it's still Southern, although evolving.

But as someone who is from the South, and then lived for ten years in the Northeast (and was very grateful at the time not to be living in the South), and then moved back South and who is surrounded by transplanted New Yorkers at work (not in Atlanta; elsewhere), the people who move South are somewhat self-selecting; they are at least somewhat open to Southern culture and wouldn't generally move there if they weren't open to it. Some completely non-Southern people might move South for career reasons, but they won't stay long if they don't like the South and don't fit in.

A screaming liberal New Yorker who cannot live without the perfect bagel and yoga on Sunday mornings at 11AM will probably not want to move to the South; a conservative, family-oriented and churchgoing New Yorker, who in those ways is somewhat "Southern", is probably would be more likely to.

Similarly, I spent a few years living in Europe; I had white-collar jobs there but moved there because I liked the countries I lived in and admired their cultures. If I had gone to Europe wanting to Americanize the place I wouldn't have gone, and if I hadn't liked living there I wouldn't have stayed.