As part of ongoing Best of Atlanta 2022 coverage, Urbanize’s second-annual Best Atlanta Neighborhood tournament kicked off last week with 16 places vying for the prestige of being called the city’s greatest.

Now, for each Elite Eight contest, voting will be open for 24 hours. Please, let’s keep the tourney fun and positive, as one neighborhood rises above the rest in very public fashion. The quest to crown a champion resumes now!

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MIDTOWN (1)

West Peachtree Street view of Rockefeller Group’s planned 60-story Midtown project.Rockefeller Group; Brock Hudgins Architects; TVS

For whatever reason, Midtown’s track record in year-end, criteria-free best neighborhood tourneys isn’t exactly stellar. But those tides could be changing. For starters, Midtown collected by far the most reader nominations earlier this month, scoring the booming subdistrict the tournament’s pole position. Then, in round-one action, Midtown squeaked past powerhouse Old Fourth Ward by the tiniest of margins—one single vote, of 447 votes cast.

Again in 2022, Midtown was Atlanta’s epicenter of high-profile job growth, high-rise development, and sheer physical change. Like no other place, Midtown exemplifies the city’s boom, as our aerial photo essays have recently captured. Mega-builds like Midtown Union delivered in 2022, while more than a dozen more high-rises broke ground or topped out, continuing a decade of skyline-altering investment that shows few signs of abating. What's more, Atlanta's tallest new building since the 1990s also showed signs of becoming real this year. But will it all make for a neighborhood being crowned best of the best? We shall see.

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CASTLEBERRY HILL (8)

The new Otis façade at 154 Walker Street (center) in Castleberry Hill includes relics from the elevator manufacturer’s building that once operated on the property. Photography by HomeTour America, courtesy of Compass of Greater Atlanta

Does scrappy Castleberry Hill stand a chance against mighty Midtown? According to round one results, the answer is: “Hell yes.” Castleberry Hill rustled up far more votes (almost 500) than its larger neighbor to the north. That helped Castleberry slip by historic Westview and achieve Elite Eight status last week. Not too shabby.   

As 2022 concludes, the artsy loft district is welcoming a direct connection to downtown with the (almost ready) new Nelson Street Bridge, a pedestrian-only, open-container space that promises to be social. Early 2022 also saw the official debut of Castleberry’s first brewery—Atlantucky Brewing, which is owned and operated by members of Southern rap quartet Nappy Roots. On the relatively cheap housing front, for-sale condos came together in 2022 at the Lyric Lofts project (from the low $300,000s). And after years of planning and construction, HGTV star Ty Pennington completed a boutique condo project in Castleberry called The Otis Building, priced from about a half-million bucks. So the buzz is real around this Atlanta neighborhood that’s truly like no other.

Now, please cast a vote below!  

(POLLING HAS CLOSED AFTER 24 HOURS. Thanks to all who participated, and congrats to CASTLEBERRY HILL, which advances to the 2022 Final Four!)