A Little Like Falling in Love

A few words about returning to one's hometown.

Atlanta has been the base of operation for your egomaniacal Wandering Gentile since 1978, and even during periods domiciled elsewhere, I returned. It is a love affair with a city that stretches back several generations.

Atlanta was then, is now, and ever shall be world without end, HOME.

It is the Braves and the Varsity; Georgia Tech and Immaculate Heart on Briarcliff; The stink of traffic on the connector and the allure of hot Quesadillas on Buford Highway. Some lament change, but it is the nature of this great city. Sherman invented urban renewal here in 1864, and that was the last time that there weren't orange barrels lining the expressways.

After several hours traveling the streets of the ATL, one who has been absent will notice people on the streets downtown and about twenty new skyscrapers going up. It's not my father's Atlanta, nor is it even the one from my adolescence. It is a new city every day.

Atlanta's lineage is in the great cities of the Northeast with the lack of boundaries from out west.

Richard Jeni once said that Chicago was founded by New Yorkers who liked the crowding and crime, but New York just wasn't cold enough in the winter. The same can be said for Atlanta, except New York summers just weren't hot or humid enough.

The skyline from the northwestern approach is a ringer for Manhattan. Drive over the hill on Georgia 280, and the casual observer could be forgiven for any and all comparisons to the view from New Jersey 3 or I280 west of the Meadowlands, coming down the hill from The Oranges and Clifton. We recognize New York's right to pride in their beautiful architecture. Our central city, built on a ridge, echoes the length of Manhattan Island if not the breadth.

At street level, Atlanta has become the vibrant city with nightlife and cultural opportunities that so many in Atlanta never believed possible. Downtown is no longer the sterile concrete canyon of 1990 or 1995. Nor is it the sterile concrete canyon of Philadelphia, Los Angeles, or Houston.

Atlanta's detractors are frequently concerned about encounters with any of the following; Gay people; Black people; Foreign people; or Jewish people. Perhaps they would be better served by avoiding Ignorant people, but how could they get up in the morning? One can avoid trite treacle like "our strength is our diversity."

Nobody in Atlanta really looks like the next person. The principal color motivating this city is green, as in money. Like Texas independents and California dreamers, Atlanta is a place for people to seek their fortunes and fulfill their destinies. If one does not like Atlanta, he or she will be encouraged to reverse their path of ingress.

Sometimes Atlanta is a cruel mistress or an abusive mother. But she is most often a sister to the Red Hot Chili Peppers' Los Angeles, Tony Bennett's San Francisco or Billy Joel's New York. Atlanta is a beloved place where everyone is from somewhere else, but their homes and roots are here on the Georgia Piedmont now.

And what a wonderful Here we have.