August 20, 2008
Alix Black, Youth Radio
INTRO:
And now it's time for our series from Youth Radio, What's the New What?
In cities around the country, white flight from downtown centers is a decades old trend. But now, big cities are attracting those suburbanites with loft living and the promise of shorter commutes. In Atlanta, Georgia, the downtown isn't being RE-populated. People are populating the once dead downtown for the first time. Which is a major transformation in a city where everything suburban has always been cool.
Alix Black brings us the story about the impact on teen social lives.
SCRIPT:
What's the New What? Inner-City is the New In-Crowd
I know it sounds obvious. But not in Atlanta. Here, it's finally cool to live downtown.
You want proof? I called out to the suburbs to talk to my friend Maddy Davis.
Maddy: Yea I'd say that the suburbs are definitely less cool now downtown is more cool.
ALIX: And I didn't even tell her to say that. You see, people used to make fun of kids like me growing up close to the inner city, which was considered dangerous. It wasn't cool like the suburbs where all the malls were. The hip spot was Buckhead - and that's miles from the city center.
ALIX: Andre 3000 of Atlanta hip hop fame is a perfect example of the "ice cold" suburban cool in Atlanta. Known for his preppy outfits, he went to middle school in the suburbs before moving to a more urban area. That's when he became part of the duo Outkast. I wonder if Andre and his partner Big Boi felt like I did in high school - an outkast living in the inner city.
ALIX: If you want to know how this all happened, the 96 Olympics marked the beginning of the shift to downtown's popularity. Now, suburbanites are not only willing to visit the inner city, but to actually live there…With new downtown developments, they can have the best of both worlds.
JESSE: As for the hip factor…When you go in-town, you're closer to people, there's more of a sense of social connections.
ALIX: That's my friend Jesse Budlong. He's the perfect example of the growing coolness of the inner city. He moved in-town with his family from the suburbs when he was in high school.
JESSE: My neighborhood was developed as the new mixed use you know live, work, play lifestyle center…
ALIX: Jesse lives in essentially an outdoor mall complex in downtown Atlanta, part of a growing trend of developments bringing suburban style into the inner city. This "lifestyle" center is nothing like the sprawling area where Jesse lived before. He attended one of the biggest high schools in Georgia, built to accommodate 1970's suburban growth and popularity.
In a sign of the times, moving intown may have made Jesse cooler. I called up Sakura Stevens, one of his old friends from the suburbs.
SAKURA: Before he moved to the city, I would say that he was not the most popular person I'd ever met in my life. He just became like really like urban. Like the way he dressed. He was just more laid back and relaxed.
ALIX: I get a little wistful for the familiar neighborhoods I grew up with. The quirky old architecture now replaced by developments that are almost "urban Disney", but it's nice to finally see a downtown Atlanta that's vibrant, instead of deserted. And I love the fact that suburban teens who might have teased me years ago are probably now wishing they were inner-city teens…Atlanta's new in-crowd
MUSIC: Welcome to Atlanta…where the players play…
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