Best Atlanta Neighborhood 2024, 1st round: (7) Cabbagetown vs. (10) Buckhead

Josh Green

Tue, 12/17/2024 – 17:04

As part of ongoing Best of Atlanta 2024 coverage, Urbanize’s fourth-annual 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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(7) Cabbagetown

How the new Memorial Drive two-way cycletrack functions next to the iconic walls of Oakland Cemetery. GDOT/Pond; via Propel ATL

In this battle of David versus Goliath, or PBR versus Prada, Cabbagetown’s diminutive size shouldn’t be underestimated, because its sense of pride is so big. On the sensible urban-planning front, this year saw a two-way, protected cycle track added through Cabbagetown that provides a better connection to both the Beltline’s Eastside Trail and west toward downtown.

Otherwise, apart from infrastructure fixes in the Krog Street Tunnel, major changes in Cabbagetown were as few and far between as actual homes for sale. (Precisely three C-town properties are on the market right now, all of them priced north of $730,000.) That speaks to the charming neighborhood’s cachet—and locals’ unwillingness to leave.

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(10) Buckhead

Buckhead’s 18-story The Dillon condo project in August, as landscaping was being prepped for the amenity level.
The Dillon Buckhead/Kolter Urban; Atlanta Fine Homes Sotheby’s International Realty

Yes, Buckhead is technically a vast patchwork of neighborhoods, but we’ll follow the lead of nominators this year and consider them all together. And what a big year 2024 was—all across Buckhead. On the high-rise residential front, The Dillon project is turning out to be a condo success story, while nearly 500 luxury apartments continue climbing over Buckhead Village, and another condo tower starts lumbering through the pipeline.

This year also saw too-cool people bridge projects start coming together—one on PATH400, another on the Beltline loop—that should make Buckhead more of a multi-use trail destination. Add a new public park project, Atlanta Opera’s $45-million plans, and new Peachtree Road-fronting medical buildings with a charitable purpose to the mix, and yes, it’s been a notable year indeed.