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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VIRGINIA-HIGHLAND (4)

Va-Hi's tony housing stock near Piedmont Park. Google Maps

After collecting enough reader nominations to earn a respectable No. 4 seed this year, upscale and historic Va-Hi succeeded in showing scrappy Peoplestown the door in the first round, capturing 64 percent of votes.

No wonder. Virginia-Highland has hardly been a stranger in 2022 to development and urban-planning headlines, and buzz for the area is strong. Portman Holdings was revealed as the mystery land-assembler hoping to remake Ponce this summer, and rumors of a planned Va-Hi mini-city turned about to be true. Whether that qualifies Virginia-Highland as ATL’s best neighborhood this year is up for debate, but like the neighborhood’s median home sales price ($900,000) in November, it certainly means it’s desirable. Other Va-Hi happenings of note included the Roycraft condo building topping out along the BeltLine, and possible signs of life for a boutique development that would wipe out a vibrancy-killing parking lot. Finally.

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HOWELL STATION (12)

Aerial photo of the Westside Paper project, a 1950s warehouse renovation, in the skies over Howell Station this year.Urbanize Atlanta

Less famous than Va-Hi, but just as proud, Howell Station pulled an upset in the first round by ousting No. 5 seed College Park, which is typically a motivated contender. It was relatively close, though, with Howell Station raking in 56 percent of votes.  

Described by one nominator as the “BEST kept secret in Atlanta”—though it's situated just west of Georgia Tech—Howell Station/Knight Park was truly under-the-radar for many Atlantans not all that long ago. But projects such as Westside Paper, soon to be the area’s next adaptive-reuse, mixed-use destination, are changing that. Ditto for the latest segment of the BeltLine’s Westside Trail, a neighborhood amenity that was the only new BeltLine section to open in 2022. If more recent development proposals—both boutique and very big—are any indication, things are just getting started in this Station.

Now, please cast a vote below!  

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