So is Atlanta a good place to live? Well I think so! We’re going to talk about the pros and cons of living in Atlanta.

Number one- Atlantans are friendly! You may feel a little awkward the first time a complete stranger smiles at you and waves at you, but that’s how it is here. It’s a very friendly environment, and people are genuinely curious about who you are and where you’re from and your life story.

Your neighbors will invite you over for dinner. It may seem a little strange at first how friendly people are, but you’ll get used to it pretty quick.

Pro number two: Atlanta’s cost of living. Atlanta has a much lower cost of living than many other metropolitan areas around the United States. If you go to Nerd Wallet’s cost of living calculator, you can put in your current city and income and see how it compares with Atlanta. In this case I’m checking out Los Angeles, and you can see that Atlanta is 30 percent less expensive and housing in particular is 56 percent less expensive in Atlanta.

Nerd Wallet’s cost of living calculator is a great tool if you’re interested in comparing your current situation with what life would be like if you move to Atlanta.

Pro number three:  travel.  Atlanta is a great place to live if you love to travel! Most Atlantans probably take it for granted, but we’re spoiled by having one of the busiest airports in the United States and you can get to almost any place in the world non-stop from Atlanta’s international airport. Add to that you’re less than two hours from the lovely Blue Ridge mountains in North Georgia, or you can hop in the car and head down to the Atlantic Ocean, and you’ll be on the beach in less than five hours!

Pro number four:  job opportunities. If you’re looking for great job opportunities, Atlanta is the home to many fortune 500 companies, including Coca-Cola, Delta Airlines, Home Depot and UPS.  Atlanta has also become a center for high-tech investment from companies like Microsoft and Google. Georgia Tech has a small business incubator which has done a tremendous job bringing high-tech industries to Atlanta.

You may not realize this, but so many films and television shows are produced in Georgia that is now called the Hollywood of the South. Every week when I’m driving around town, I see film production sets film and tv production.

In Atlanta healthcare is also big business. In fact, four of our top ten employers in Atlanta are in the healthcare sector. Right now all of these hospitals are aggressively recruiting doctors and nurses and they’re paying big signing bonuses. So, if you’re looking for great job opportunities Atlanta is the place to be.

Pro number five:  the weather! The weather here is really enjoyable – for most of the year it gets a hot in July and August, and gets a little cold in January. But for most of the year, the weather’s pretty fantastic. It’s very easy to get outside and do outdoor activities pretty much year round.

Pro number six:  there’s lots of things to do in Atlanta.  As I said the great weather makes it very easy to get outside and enjoy yourself whether you like hiking, biking, tennis, golf.  You can do those activities pretty much year round. The Chattahoochee River is a great recreational resource. We love to go tubing there every summer, and one of our other favorite things to do is to visit what we call dog island, where all the dog owners bring their pups to splash around and play in the river.

If you’re a gardening aficionado, you’re going to love the Atlanta Botanical Gardens.  They have an indoor rain forest, an orchid house, they have a chef’s kitchen, an edible garden and a children’s garden. They have sculptures made out of plants –  it’s really a wonderful place. If you’re into gardening and you’re into plants you’ve got to go to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens.

If you’d like to stay busy, whether you like professional sports leagues, sports, the opera, art museums, art festivals, the symphony, swimming, fishing, music and small clubs or large arenas, Atlanta is filled with great cultural activities. Add to that thousands of restaurants serving every kind of cuisine imaginable and I promise you you will not be hungry or bored living in Atlanta.

And finally pro number seven:  the green space. One thing you’ll notice when you see images of Georgia is that there are trees everywhere. Atlanta is a big city in an enormous forest and the city hasn’t scared off the wildlife. My backyard is like a nature special on PBS there’s bunny rabbits and foxes possums and dozens of birds including hawks and falcons – which is why we have the Atlanta hawks and the Atlanta falcons. The trees give us some great colors in the fall.

So now let’s talk about our cons. Fortunately there aren’t many cons to living in Atlanta, but I’m going to go ahead and give them to you here.

Con number one the traffic. Atlanta is notorious for having some of the worst traffic in the United States. I always tell people if you’re moving to Atlanta you really need to get a home close to where you work. I will say one thing that has improved traffic in Atlanta is the new work from home paradigm it’s really taken a good chunk of cars off the road and I think it’s made a big improvement and hopefully it will continue. But again if you’re moving to Atlanta the number one thing you can do to improve your quality of life is to live reasonably close to where you work.

Con number two: lack of mass transit. This goes hand in hand with Atlanta’s traffic problems. Atlanta’s mass transit system is called MARTA and to be honest it kind of sucks. Unfortunately MARTA wasn’t very well designed to begin with-  it uses a very large rail which requires excessively large stations unlike the lighter platforms that you see in Chicago and New York City. It also doesn’t cover much area, in fact many of the stations on the north side you actually have to drive to get to the station, which kind of defeats the point of mass transit. Atlanta is very spread out geographically and MARTA just doesn’t cover much area. So if you’re planning on making a move to Atlanta and you’re thinking you want to use mass transit, you really need to do your homework and make sure it’s going to be a viable solution for you.

Con number three:  the rain. As nice as the weather is most of the year, sometimes it can start raining and you honestly wonder if it’s ever going to stop. Atlanta actually gets much more rain than even a notoriously rainy city like Seattle. Seattle for instance averages 38 inches of rain every year Atlanta actually averages 50 inches of rain. The difference is in Seattle, it’s rainy and drizzly all the time. In Atlanta the thunderstorms pop up and you get these incredible downpours. I can’t tell you how many times i’ve been on the highway and had to pull off because I just simply couldn’t see 10 feet in front of my car because of all the rain.

I hope this gives you a little bit more insight what it’s like to live in Atlanta. It’s a lovely town – friendly people, great cultural activities, so much to do, wonderful weather. It’s just a terrific all-around place to live.