We're playing in Atlanta on 8/31/25 . . .

[atl-cock]

Any good hotels near Mercedes Benz stadium, if so what kind of money would I be looking at spending on a room that weekend for my wife, my kid and me?

No need to stay that close to the stadium. You can stay in midtown and take the MARTA communter train to Mercedes Benz.

MARTA

marta

itsmarta.com

 

[atl-cock]

I guess if you like nightmarish traffic 24/7/365, crime, third world level govt corruption and never ending racial demagoguery then Atlanta is a great place.

I live in unincorporated Dekalb County, not far from Emory University and CDC Headquarters. My neighbourhood is safe. Yes, there's traffic. You just have to learn where and when to dodge it.

I'm sure I'll be posting the below again and again for the next several months:

If you are going to drive in to Atlanta from SC for just the game itself, you are probably better off parking at an outlying MARTA train station - Doraville if you're coming down I-85, and Indian Creek if you're coming from I-20. Take the train to the stadium. There are a few eateries in the vicinity of the stadium.

If you are coming for the weekend, I would not limit myself to downtown hotels, but I would ensure that I had easy access to MARTA to take the train to Mercedes Benz. Midtown and Buckhead are not far from the train line.

The below link will provide what you need to know to use the system. Among the options is to download a MARTA app on your smatrphone and add fares to it. It's $2.50 a ride these days.

MARTA - Metro Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority

 

[atl-cock]

Well, I get to work downtown at 6 am and am usually heading north on 75 by 3 pm, so I miss most of the bad traffic. The vast majority of the crime is in those "places not to go". The government corruption is embarrassing. It's always been a cesspool and anything the City of Atlanta officials get their grubby fingers on is ruined. I haven't witnessed the never-ending racial demagoguery myself, but I'm sure it's there same as it is pretty much anywhere. I do know that if you want all of those things, all you have to do is trot over to Little 5 Points and you can soak it all in. I had to run to Criminal Records last Monday to grab a record for my oldest son and boy that little slice of hell never disappoints

The Edgewood Retail district off of Moreland Ave just south of Little Five Points is quite nice. Lots of gentrification going on in nearby Kirkwood these days.

 

[atl-cock]

You don't really live in Atlanta, you commute to Atlanta to work. There is a reason, many reasons actually, nobody chooses to actually live in Atlanta. Unlike many other large cities, Atlanta proper really isn't a place where people live, it is a place people go to and then go home from. Downtown Chicago, NYC, Dallas, Houston, Miami pretty much every other major city has a lot of people who actually live in the downtown areas. There are stores, shops, neighborhood restaurants, dry cleaners, night life, etc.. Atlanta doesn't have any of that. Downtown Atlanta is a homeless camp and urban crime hell scape with tall buildings and interstate highways running through it. No one in their right mind wants to be out walking around downtown Atlanta after dark. The Atlanta metro area is the poster child for unchecked suburban sprawl and all the problems it creates. The horrible traffic isn't only in Atlanta proper, it is everywhere in the metro Atlanta region. Atlanta is like a malignant tumor in the state of Georgia. It has metastasized, growing and consuming parts of the state that were considered their own towns and regions a few decades ago, even Athens is feeling the pain of Atlanta's sprawl.

I live in Augusta. We have plenty of our own problems but I think we have it better than Atlanta when it comes to quality of life.

By Atlanta proper, I assume you mean the downtown core. There are suburban areas in the city of Atlanta, e.g., Ansley Park, Buckhead, Morningside, Kirkwood, the Old Fourth Ward, etc. which are nice.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, I could easily predict when to expect rush hour traffic. It's been challenging ever since.

 

[Swifty]

The Edgewood Retail disctrct off of Moreland Ave just south of Little Five Point is quite nice. Lots of gentrification going on in Kirkwood these days.

Lots of work on sections of the West End, also. You do have to know where to go and not to go, but I've never had any issues. I used to manage a property on the West End right on the Beltline with multiples breweries, a distillery and several frufru shops. It's fine. The other side of the Beltline, however is not fine.

 

[atl-cock]

Lots of work on sections of the West End, also. You do have to know where to go and not to go, but I've never had any issues. I used to manage a property on the West End right on the Beltline with multiples breweries, a distillery and several frufru shops. It's fine. The other side of the Beltline, however is not fine.

Beltline at Ponce DeLeon Ave is fine. Boulevard at Ponce DeLeon is still sketchy. Yes, I forgot to mention the gentrification of West Midtown.