As part of ongoing Best of Atlanta 2024 coverage, Urbanize’s fourth-annual Best Atlanta Neighborhood tournament is kicking off with 16 places vying for the prestige of being called the city’s greatest. (Note: Seeding from 1 to 16 was determined by reader nominations this month—so no pitchforks, please.)
For each Round 1 contest, voting will be open for just 24 hours. Please, let’s keep the tourney fun and positive, as one neighborhood rises above the rest in very public fashion. The eliminations begin now!
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(2) Inman Park
Courtesy of Painted Hospitality
Inarguably one of Atlanta’s most charming neighborhoods, the city’s “first planned suburb” remains a beautiful, fascinating amalgam of Victorian homes, useful greenspaces, transit/Beltline accessibility, and well-planned commercial hubs along North Highland Avenue, Krog Street, and elsewhere. For more than 50 years, Inman Park has also hosted one of the city’s best neighborhood festivals—no small feat in festival-happy ATL.
This year’s most splashy addition was the adaptive-reuse Painted Park, an expanded dining and entertainment concept borne of the old Parish space along the Eastside Trail. Elsewhere, the expansion of a 1950s complex promises to add vibrancy to Inman Park’s main commercial crossroads. Despite its attributes, Inman Park hasn’t taken the crown in one of these criteria-free contests since the very first one, way back in 2011. Can a strong ’24 change that?
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(15) Decatur
Decatur's much loved, admonished, and/or ridiculed planter boxes, as shown in greener days. Josh Green/Urbanize Atlanta
Yes, sherlocks, Decatur is technically its own city and not a neighborhood (rules permit ITP cities in this contest), but from Oakhurst Village to the underground MARTA station surrounded by local restaurants and bars, it sure feels like an intown neighborhood around here.
Decatur made development and urban-planning headlines throughout 2024—too many to list here. But a few highlights included the modernized Town Center Plan 2.0 overhaul moving forward, the addition of actual affordable standalone houses near downtown, a greenspace conversion to a village with attainable rents, the debut of Decatur Housing Authority’s spiffy new digs, and a mixed-use node that’s going vertical near a different MARTA station now. Even old Agnes Scott College made waves this year, wrapping a solar-heavy, thoughtful update of a true Decatur landmark. Not too shabby.
