from someone's blog--I would generally agree.
<We do have a few bad neighborhoods, and it's sometimes easy to drive into the wrong area. Just be aware of your surroundings. Here is a list of neighborhoods to watch out for.
The only *really bad* place in Atlanta is a neighborhood called the bluff. I'm pretty street-savvy and even I won't drive through there in the daytime. Its location is immediately west of Northside Drive (US Highway 19), bordered by Donald L. Hollowell (Bankhead Hwy) on the north, and Joseph Boone (Simpson Street) on the south. If you've seen the show "The Walking Dead", it's like that in real life. Huge heroin hub, mostly abandoned houses, and really narrow creepy streets, some of them are dirt roads. There is a really bad vibe emanating from this place, it even looks dark in the daytime it's like a third world country. Believe it or not, it's full of historic homes and buildings. Hopefully someday it will be a nice place. But it's not now. So don't go.
Fortunately, this neighborhood is pretty small and self-contained. There are neighborhoods within a half mile of this that are actually pretty safe. The rest of the neighborhoods I'm going to mention, you won't get shot or anything, but they aren't the nicest places to go and there's a lot of burglary and property crime.
Most people avoid the entire westside of Atlanta north of 20 and south of 75. This is a bit drastic, but I would caution that when you're in downtown, you definitely do not want to go west of Northside Drive. There are parts of the westside that are really nice, but it's easy to get lost since we're not on a grid, so I would just avoid it. The westside around 285 is generally okay.
The second place to avoid is a small section of Boulevard, which is what Monroe Drive turns into if you head south this is around the Atlanta Medical Center. It's really not all that bad to drive through, but I wouldn't get out and walk. If you keep heading south Boulevard gets nice again.
The third place is the triangle formed by interstate 20 east, interstate 75 south, and 285, or Southeast Atlanta. Generally, don't go too far south of I-20 or you get into kind of a rough area. Grant Park, East Atlanta, these neighbourhoods are very safe. But much further south, not so much.
The fourth area is Southwest Atlanta. Parts of this area are rough, such as directly south of I-20 and west of I-75/85 this is where Mechanicsville and Pittsburgh (the place where the guy got beat up for being gay) are.
West End is borderline, Capitol View was getting nicer but the recession has set that back some. College Park used to be bad, but is now almost entirely safe. Parts of East Point you will want to avoid, but much of it is nice. Roads to avoid are Metropolitan Parkway (or Stewart Avenue) and parts of Campbellton Road and all of University Avenue.
I know this sounds like a boatload of places to avoid, but it's not all that much the city of Atlanta proper has around 300 neighborhoods and there are only a handful that are not safe. Overall, a lot of places that used to be dangerous are now very nice and walkable. Atlanta has really seen a revitalization in the last few years, and it is a wonderful place to live, with our violent crime rate having dropped 40%, and all of the projects having been torn down.>
<We do have a few bad neighborhoods, and it's sometimes easy to drive into the wrong area. Just be aware of your surroundings. Here is a list of neighborhoods to watch out for.
The only *really bad* place in Atlanta is a neighborhood called the bluff. I'm pretty street-savvy and even I won't drive through there in the daytime. Its location is immediately west of Northside Drive (US Highway 19), bordered by Donald L. Hollowell (Bankhead Hwy) on the north, and Joseph Boone (Simpson Street) on the south. If you've seen the show "The Walking Dead", it's like that in real life. Huge heroin hub, mostly abandoned houses, and really narrow creepy streets, some of them are dirt roads. There is a really bad vibe emanating from this place, it even looks dark in the daytime it's like a third world country. Believe it or not, it's full of historic homes and buildings. Hopefully someday it will be a nice place. But it's not now. So don't go.
Fortunately, this neighborhood is pretty small and self-contained. There are neighborhoods within a half mile of this that are actually pretty safe. The rest of the neighborhoods I'm going to mention, you won't get shot or anything, but they aren't the nicest places to go and there's a lot of burglary and property crime.
Most people avoid the entire westside of Atlanta north of 20 and south of 75. This is a bit drastic, but I would caution that when you're in downtown, you definitely do not want to go west of Northside Drive. There are parts of the westside that are really nice, but it's easy to get lost since we're not on a grid, so I would just avoid it. The westside around 285 is generally okay.
The second place to avoid is a small section of Boulevard, which is what Monroe Drive turns into if you head south this is around the Atlanta Medical Center. It's really not all that bad to drive through, but I wouldn't get out and walk. If you keep heading south Boulevard gets nice again.
The third place is the triangle formed by interstate 20 east, interstate 75 south, and 285, or Southeast Atlanta. Generally, don't go too far south of I-20 or you get into kind of a rough area. Grant Park, East Atlanta, these neighbourhoods are very safe. But much further south, not so much.
The fourth area is Southwest Atlanta. Parts of this area are rough, such as directly south of I-20 and west of I-75/85 this is where Mechanicsville and Pittsburgh (the place where the guy got beat up for being gay) are.
West End is borderline, Capitol View was getting nicer but the recession has set that back some. College Park used to be bad, but is now almost entirely safe. Parts of East Point you will want to avoid, but much of it is nice. Roads to avoid are Metropolitan Parkway (or Stewart Avenue) and parts of Campbellton Road and all of University Avenue.
I know this sounds like a boatload of places to avoid, but it's not all that much the city of Atlanta proper has around 300 neighborhoods and there are only a handful that are not safe. Overall, a lot of places that used to be dangerous are now very nice and walkable. Atlanta has really seen a revitalization in the last few years, and it is a wonderful place to live, with our violent crime rate having dropped 40%, and all of the projects having been torn down.>
