Best Atlanta Neighborhood 2024, FINAL FOUR: Inman Park vs. Old Fourth Ward

Josh Green

Fri, 12/27/2024 – 15:48

As part of ongoing Best of Atlanta 2024 coverage, Urbanize’s fourth-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 Final Four contest, voting will be open until noon Monday. 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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(2) Inman Park

Recap:

2011 champ Inman Park showed Decatur the exit with a whopping 70 percent of votes in Round 1, and then bumped eastside neighbor Cabbagetown from the competition earlier this week.

Inman Park’s parkside Waverly Way in 2022. Google Maps

Inarguably one of Atlanta’s most charming neighborhoods, the city’s “first planned suburb” remains a beautiful, fascinating amalgam of Victorian homes, useful greenspaces, transit/Beltline accessibility, and well-planned commercial hubs along North Highland Avenue, Krog Street, and elsewhere. For more than 50 years, Inman Park has also hosted one of the city’s best neighborhood festivals—no small feat in festival-happy ATL.

This year’s most splashy addition was the adaptive-reuse Painted Park, an expanded dining and entertainment concept borne of the old Parish space along the Eastside Trail. Elsewhere, the expansion of a 1950s complex promises to add vibrancy to Inman Park’s main commercial crossroads. Despite its attributes, Inman Park hasn’t taken the crown in one of these criteria-free contests since the very first one, 13 long years ago. Can a strong ’24 change that?

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(3) Old Fourth Ward

Recap:

In Round 1, Old Fourth Ward escorted historic Adair Park to the door, and then edged feisty Summerhill in Elite Eight action. O4W is indeed a past champion, too—but not since 2012.

The distinctive Forth hotel tower, at left, and Overline Residences apartments, as seen from Historic Fourth Ward Park earlier this year. Josh Green/Urbanize Atlanta

Beltline-connected Old Fourth Ward has been a hotbed of supersonic growth for what seems like ages now. As usual, O4W happenings this year were too numerous to list here, but a few highlights: Two high-rise hospitality concepts—New City’s diamond-patterned Forth hotel and the Scout Living tower over Ponce City Market—drew back their curtains in 2024, as rare for-sale condos debuted nearby at The Leon on Ponce.

Speaking of Ponce, a Complete Streets overhaul came together as an effort to improve pedestrian and bike connections between Boulevard and John Lewis Freedom Parkway. Elsewhere, the Atlanta Civic Center redo edged toward groundbreaking, and the relatively affordable evolution of Boulevard continued to rise. Nonetheless, this eastside powerhouse hasn’t claimed the (nonexistent) trophy in one of these contests for a dozen years. But could that change in ’24?