This morning, Rusty and I went to look at some houses on the west side of town. Before this we had looked in East Atlanta, Kirkwood, Edgewood, Grant Park, Midway (an area just south of Decatur), and some other parts of unincorporated Dekalb County, such as near where Avondale Mall used to be. We want to see and consider as many parts of town as possible, so that we can make an informed decision about where we want to live. We were interested in particular in Westview after reading this blog, and because a friend of mine from SPARK bought a house there last year.
We drove through Cascade Heights, Adams Park, Adair Park, Westview, and a little bit of West End. And probably some other places too - those are just what I remember from sign toppers. Turns out Westview is very cute, just like the blog had said; sure there are some ramshackle houses and foreclosures ready to be auctioned, but hey, it’s a neighborhood “in transition” (I really hate that term). The little village center reminds me of East Atlanta, and I bet it’s only a matter of time before a coffee shop opens there.
We also liked Adair Park. Initially we planned to go there to see if it was the ghetto, because we’d found what looked like the perfect house, at least from its online ad, and that’s where it is. We had been to Adair Park once before, in December, when we went to photograph the historic and sadly decaying Adair Park Elementary School; but we didn’t see much of the area at that time, as we just went to the school and then straight back home.
It was funny because you always hear people talk so badly about the “west side” and make comments about it being “rough” and, well, the ghetto - which is exactly why we went to check it out! As I mentioned on Twitter, driving around these neighborhoods made us realize (not that it was a surprise; so I guess I should say remember instead of realize) that a lot of the time when people say somewhere is “the ghetto” it’s just not-so-thinly-veiled racism. What I think of as “the ghetto” is an area that doesn’t seem to have a sense of permanence - lots of vacant houses, rental houses with revolving tenants, and people wandering around as if they have nowhere to be, for example. We’ve gotten that feeling from some parts of Grant Park and other “east side” intown neighborhoods. Whereas in Adair Park and Westview, there were active neighborhood organizations (signs everywhere for meetings), not many people just wandering around aimlessly, and it felt like the place was more stable and well-maintained and that a lot of the people living there had been there a while.
I know it’s tough to really make any coherent statements about this at all in Atlanta, because the reality is that a lot of places, one street is fine and the next street is sketchy. But just from this morning and our other driving-around jaunts, this is the impression we’ve gotten so far in general.
As for that “perfect house” I mentioned, I know we need to get over it, because it won’t be on the market when we’re actually ready to buy (early next year). Even if we could talk a seller into buying out our lease right now, realistically we need to save up some more money anyway. But here are a few photos of it, from the online ad:




(Yes, the kitchen is painted a shade strikingly close to Vols orange. So maybe it’s not 100% perfect!)
We need to do more research about all the areas of town we’re considering, but just thought I’d share some of our impressions from this morning. All is not always as it seems!