Best suburb

Because it’s closer to intown Atlanta’s coolest neighborhoods than most of the rest of intown Atlanta, people tend not to think of DECATUR as a suburb. But a suburb it is. The DeKalb County seat is home to 18,000 people who enjoy many of the benefits of suburban living (more green space, a slightly slower pace of life than the city, decent public schools and an accessible local government) with few of the drawbacks. It has public transit, and plenty of places within walking distance of each other, including charming shops, great restaurants, bars and an increasing number of mid-rise condominiums. This fall, it’s even slated to get a free municipal Wi-Fi network that will cover much of the city. Top that, Alpharetta. less...

There’s no suburb in Atlanta where you’ll hear Vietnamese, Somali, Urdu and Serbo-Croatian as commonly spoken as it is in CLARKSTON. The town popped up in the 1830s, when railroad workers laid tracks to connect Atlanta to Augusta. Because the railroad made it easy to commute to Atlanta for work, Clarkston became one of the first suburbs in the South. It fell on hard times in the 1970s and ’80s, but retained its quiet, modest charm. Then, refugees who flocked to Clarkston for public transportation and affordable housing transformed it into a vibrant, eclectic hamlet, and now a new generation of commuters is fixing up old homes and building new ones. How many other quaint neighborhoods have 4-bedroom, 2-bath houses with a backyard for $145,000?
www.cityofclarkston.com

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