As part of ongoing Best of Atlanta 2021 coverage, Urbanize’s inaugural 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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DECATUR (5)
Highest home sale of 2021: $1.65 million
Lowest: $67K two-bedroom condo
Median sales price increase year-over-year: 41.2 percent
Despite a couple of pandemic-influenced eatery closings recently, the historic core of DeKalb’s county seat continues to roar ahead, adding new businesses in 2021, including a fresh brewery, and one of the city’s most sizable, upscale apartment communities to date, the under-construction Moda Decatur. Elsewhere, townhomes galore continue to crop up—including some that (gasp) might not break the bank for first-time buyers. And kudos to the city for pulling off a downtown incubator this year that’s meant to serve as a launchpad for local businesses. Elsewhere, plans are also solidifying to replace Decatur’s beloved/despised street planter boxes with a more permanent, protective solution. So resting on its laurels Decatur is not.
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REYNOLDSTOWN (12)
Highest home sale of 2021: $1,175,000 modern
Lowest: $240K one-bedroom condo
Median price increase year-over-year: 13.6 percent
Ever the BeltLine-adjacent investment darling, Reynoldstown’s footprint might be small, but changes across the neighborhood in 2021—and on the affordable housing front in the near future—were mighty. Most notably, Reynoldstown’s Stein Steel factory, a jobs hub for nearly a century, bowed out, selling 6.5 acres of “beachfront” BeltLine property that’s swiftly becoming Empire Communities’ 276-unit mix of townhomes and condos. The debut of The Eastern music venue at Atlanta Dairies—amidst a global pandemic, no less—was definitely a ’21 win for R-town. But for better or worse, the neighborhood’s pool-topped, uber-swank townhomes remain TBD.
