How cool is it that one of the world’s coolest neighborhoods is in metro Atlanta? It’s very cool.
Each year, Time Out surveys “thousands of people around the globe to discover the world’s coolest neighbourhoods: the places that represent the spirit of the greatest cities on earth. These are the places to be for food and fun, art and culture, atmosphere and personality.”
Because the coronavirus pandemic has turned the world on its ear this year, Time Out decided to change things up a bit in it criteria.
As the short list was based on the opinions of 38,000-plus city-dwellers who answered the annual Time Out Index survey, telling us which bits of their city they loved.
“But right now, more than ever, it’s cool to be kind,” James Manning wrote for Time Out. “So 2020′s coolest neighbourhoods are still the ones with a fascinating mixture of people, innovative and inclusive food, drink, arts and culture, affordable rents and living costs, and that hard-to-define buzz that draws people from across the globe. But this year, more than ever, they are the areas where people, community and businesses have helped each other through shared tribulations: places that represent the soul of the city.”
The editors and contributors were somehow able to trim all the neighborhoods in the world down to their 40 favorite. And they ranked Little Five Points among those, at No. 25.
“An artsy neighbourhood where creatives and free spirits live next to eccentric tattoo parlours and lively dive bars, Little Five Points is beloved by Atlantans for its vibrant and intimate community. It has all the upsides of city life — access to MARTA, walkability — without the insane parking prices and head-throbbing traffic of life in downtown Atlanta,” Joshua Robinson wrote.
"L5P is where eccentric music venues and diverse outfitters coexist, so that a walk down Euclid Avenue might reveal a streetwear-clad college student on her way to edgy boutique Wish ATL to purchase a pair of Yeezys, a burgeoning band smoking outside of Aisle 5 before their first public performance, a hippie couple grabbing a smoothie at Arden’s Garden after a successful evening of thrifting, or a local rapper shooting a video in Moods Music, a great Black-owned record store.
“Although individual expression seems to pump through the veins of every Little Five Points resident, this is also a rich, tight-knit community, whose epicentre — the five-way junction at the corner of Euclid and Moreland — regularly holds bar crawls, art sales and impromptu sidewalk jam sessions.”
Little Five Points is one of only seven American neighborhoods to make the ranking.
No. 2: Downtown, Los Angeles
No. 4: Bedford-Stuyvesant, New York
No. 15: Ghosttown, Oakland
No. 24: Uptown, Chicago
No. 25: Little Five Points, Atlanta
No. 26: Wynwood, Miami
No. 37: Allston, Boston
If you’re looking to make a bucket list, you can check out the complete list here.
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