Atlanta is the capital of the modern South — not the South of plantations and slow rivers, but the South of glass towers, corporate headquarters, a major international airport, and an African American cultural life that has shaped American music, civil rights history, and political culture in ways that are entirely disproportionate to the city’s age. It was founded in 1837 as a railroad terminus, burned to the ground in 1864, rebuilt, and grew. It now has a metropolitan population of over 6 million and a traffic problem of corresponding scale.
We have visited Atlanta just once. It was the start of a road trip and we didn’t go into the city’s downtown areas. So the following is based on trusted sources of information.
A Little Background
The site was chosen in 1837 as the southern terminus of the Western and Atlantic Railroad — hence the name, a feminisation of “Atlantic.” It was, from the beginning, a railroad city rather than an agricultural one, which gave it a different character from the rest of Georgia. Sherman’s burning of Atlanta in 1864 — the month of destruction and the aftermath — is the event the city is most associated with internationally, but the Atlanta that exists today was largely built after that event.
The twentieth century gave Atlanta a history in two parallel tracks. In one track: the rise of Coca-Cola (headquartered here since 1892), Delta Air Lines, CNN, and a string of other corporations that made Atlanta the dominant commercial centre of the Southeast. In the other track: the Sweet Auburn neighbourhood, the Black business and cultural district that survived segregation and produced Martin Luther King Jr., and the civil rights movement that King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, based in Atlanta, carried into the national mainstream. The two tracks are not separate; understanding Atlanta requires holding both simultaneously.
What to See and Do
The Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park on Auburn Avenue is one of the most important sites in American history — the neighbourhood where King was born, grew up, and was based. The park encompasses his birth home, Ebenezer Baptist Church (where his father and grandfather preached, and where King himself was co-pastor), the King Center with his crypt and the eternal flame, and the museum in the former fire station. Free admission. Allow two to three hours; the experience is more affecting than the logistics suggest.
The National Center for Civil and Human Rights, adjacent to the Georgia Aquarium downtown, opened in 2014 and is the most powerful and immersive civil rights museum in the country outside Memphis. The lunch counter simulation — sitting in a reproduction of the Woolworth’s counter used for sit-in protests, with audio designed to recreate the harassment protestors received — is the most discussed exhibit. Adult approximately US$20.
The World of Coca-Cola is the company’s own branded museum near Centennial Olympic Park — a glossy, unapologetically commercial experience that includes a tasting room of Coca-Cola products from around the world (including several that are available in no other context) and the original secret formula vault. Whether this is your thing depends on your relationship to corporate America; the tasting room is objectively enjoyable. Adult approximately US$22.
The High Museum of Art on Peachtree Street is the leading art museum in the Southeast — a Richard Meier-designed building with a strong collection of American decorative arts, European painting from the fourteenth to the twentieth centuries, and African American art. Adult approximately US$19.
The BeltLine is an ongoing urban redevelopment project converting a 35-kilometre ring of former railway corridors into trails, parks, and transit — the most ambitious urban trail project in the United States. The completed sections (roughly two-thirds of the ring) are the best way to move between neighbourhoods on foot or by bike, connecting Inman Park, Ponce City Market, the Old Fourth Ward, and the Westside. Free.
Centennial Olympic Park, built for the 1996 Olympics, is the city’s central public space — 8 hectares of fountains and green space in the middle of downtown, with the interactive fountain in the Olympic rings the most popular feature. Free.
Getting There
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) is consistently the world’s busiest airport by passenger numbers. The MARTA rail system connects the airport directly to downtown (approximately 20 minutes, US$2.50), making it one of the better-connected major airports in the United States. MARTA also serves Midtown, Buckhead, and most of the major tourist sites. Amtrak’s Crescent runs daily between New York and New Orleans, stopping at Atlanta; the journey from New York is approximately 18 hours.
Cost and Hours
Atlanta is moderately priced compared to coastal American cities. Mid-range hotels downtown or in Midtown run US$150–250 per night. Allow three days; four if you want to do the civil rights history properly and explore the BeltLine and the neighbourhoods.