Occasionally, I like reading Curbed. Sure, the writing is a little biased, the commenters are amongst the most pretentious on the planet, but sometimes, it’s a nice way to see other neighborhoods and parts of town that I might not be so aware of. At the end of each year, Curbed does this thing called The Curbed Cup, and they like to poll readers to determine, what the best neighborhood in the region is.
Previous winners in Atlanta aren’t any real surprises; Inman Park, Old Fourth Ward, Kirkwood, Reynoldstown; these are areas rife with pretty successful gentrification and are appropriately densely packed with hipsters, new money, and hipsters with new money. Last year’s winner was a little bit of a head-scratcher; the West End, which to anyone who isn’t familiar with the area, it’s basically the region of town that is literally on the other side of the tracks, that is full of blight, crime, unoccupied and dilapidated homes and more crime.
There’s no denying that the potential of the West End is grandiose if it could ever actually be successfully cleaned, reset, and developed appropriately, as it sits on a lot of prime real estate that the burgeoning Atlanta real estate market would salivate over, if it were remotely usable.
But anointing it as the best Atlanta neighborhood of 2015 was quite the head-scratcher, and I would wager money that bloggers and snarky internet commenters could write essays on how great the West End is in their opinion, but they wouldn’t be able to say NO fast enough, if they were asked if they would actually live there.
That’s the kind of place the West End really is.
Which leads us to this year’s Atlanta Curbed Cup, where the final two neighborhoods have been named: East Atlanta, an area loaded with hipsters, a robust dining scene, but a pretty scary amount of crime, and . . . College Park.
For starters, College Park could barely be considered an Atlanta neighborhood. It’s literally the last commuter stop on MARTA, and depending on traffic is anywhere from 20-60 minutes outside of downtown Atlanta.
Second, this is the same College Park that has been known for decades by locals, to be a hot bed of crime and criminal activity. If you looked at College Park on a Sim City map, this would be the region of the map that glowed red, and only a massive influx of police stations being dropped every four units would have any hope in hell at bringing it down.
Seriously, googling “college park ga crime” resulted in the following screen grab, instantaneously.
And then, clicking the first two links in the search results brings up articles that show a laundry list of statistics and comparisons to the national median that describe just how bad the crime is in College Park, Georgia.
The point is College Park is a ghetto. It’s a ghetto that even those who live in other ghettos hear “College Park,” and the first word out of their mouths are “ghetto.” People who live in West End would go “eww” if asked to move to College Park. At least in the West End, you’re close to city conveniences, even if you need a Kevlar vest to safely live in either ghetto.
Yet, it’s also a finalist for Curbed Atlanta’s neighborhood of the year.
I hope it wins. Not only does it further invalidate and smear the integrity of Curbed Atlanta, but because it would be fucking hilarious.
Hipsters. They love gentrification so much, they’ll begin trying to curry favor with places that haven’t even been gentrified yet. Again, I’d bet money that everyone who is actually seriously voting, and believes that College Park is the best neighborhood in town, but doesn’t live there, couldn’t be paid money if offered, to move to College Park. People can blow the place with words, rhetoric and a list of perceived benefits, but the crime statistics don’t lie.
Typically, I’d have waited for the results to finish before making a post about it, but apparently they’re keeping the polls open way longer than I anticipated, and I’m going to inevitably forget and/or stop caring, or College Park won’t actually win, and I’ll have had this train of thought for zero payout. So away we go.
College Park, for Atlanta neighborhood of the year. Even if your physical danger is 24% higher than the national average anywhere else.
