Actually, it took me living down here for over a year before I started seeing that Atlanta actually does have a soul. There are things to do and experience around this town that I never expected to find. Little places stuck here and there offering food and entertainment that don’t get much publicity but are always hopping.

And the suburbs around here are actually little towns that have been around for over a hundred years with rich histories of their own that have just found themselves surrounded by strip malls. Old Norcross and Buford are two jewels here in Gwinnett county.

I’ll try to put together a few posts this week about the things I’ve found down here over the last three years. Yeah, it’s offically three years this month that I moved here. The place is starting to grow on me.

You mean, the strong sense of identity and civic pride that went into defining Izzy hasn’t been an anchor for the town?

I think that some soul searching on the part of the civic leaders is a good thing. I’ve long described Atlanta as “a white box with ‘City’ stenciled on in black”, pretty generic. And, unlike that eccentric southern attitude embraced by Savannah or New Orleans, Atlanta hasn’t found a likeable part to latch on to; “No really, Sherman gave us a fresh start!” isn’t exactly a rallying cry.

Of course it’s hard to tell from an article, but the problem I’ve seen is that Atlanta has that “what will make you like us?” desperation thing going on. Tourism-wise, I can’t think of reasons to go to Atlanta except as a base to visit elsewhere: The outdoors of southeastern Tennessee or western South Carolina, the culture of the places outside of Atlanta. It’s hard to reconcile something like “what happens here stays here” with “Georgia”, and when you think of nightlife or youth culture, “we’ve got suburbs” isn’t exactly a drawing point.

I’ll have to ask my friends who’d know the scuttlebut why Atlanta hasn’t had a SIGGRAPH since 1988. Is there some reason that the conference center isn’t drawing big high tech shows? That might point to a wider symptom…