What we love — and hate — about Atlanta
From the lush tree canopy to the countless neighborhoods to call home, there's lots to love about living in Atlanta.
But it's not perfect, and not a day goes by where we're not complaining about something (looking at you, Downtown Connector).
Driving the news: On this 404 Day, please indulge us as we dive into our love/hate relationship with Atlanta via this non-exhaustive list.
Love
We are forever changing: Metro Atlanta's population rose from 3.5 million people in 2000 to over 5.2 million in 2024, according to the Atlanta Regional Commission, making us the sixth largest and third fastest-growing region in the country.
It's also a transient town, and the churn of interesting people moving in and out make for an interesting and diverse place. (That also makes for great international food — but is it too much to ask for a good sandwich?)
Hate
Can't keep up: We have underinvested in mass transit and affordable housing, fueling sprawl, which keeps us confined to cars on wide roads choked with gridlock.
Elected officials and planners have prioritized building roads — the infrastructure of least resistance — to serve the economy first and people second.
Love
You can get anywhere from here: Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport — a love/hate story in itself — can connect you with more than 150 destinations. You could fly to some later this afternoon if you wanted (and could afford).
Hate
Identity crisis: A city reborn, the Black Mecca, the City Too Busy to Hate?
Atlanta is eternally rising from the ashes, swinging for the fences. In the process, we never really figured out who we are.
Love
Black history and present: The city isn't just the hometown of famous civil rights figures. It's been a springboard for Black excellence in the arts, music, business, science and just plain life and a beacon for people across the country.
Hate
Income inequality and social inequity: Decades of red-hot growth have failed to bridge the wide gap between the haves and have nots in the metro area and Atlanta in particular.
Love
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Former HBCU star thriving with Harlem Globetrotters
Randy McClure always dreamed of making basketball his career-and now, he's living that dream with flair. Known as 'Crash' the former HBCU standout at Albany State University, McClure is now dazzling audiences around the globe with the World Famous Harlem Globetrotters. McClure carved his name into Albany State history with over 1000 career points. From 2016 to 2020, he earned titles such as D2 All-American and SIAC All-Conference. He was also named twice to the NBPA HBCU Top 50, a rare honor for student-athletes at historically Black colleges and universities. After college, McClure played overseas. He won both League MVP and Championship honors in the Moldova Superleague. His success abroad led to a homecoming with one of basketball's most iconic teams. "When an opportunity to play with the world's most historic team comes, you don't turn it down," McClure said. Since joining the Harlem Globetrotters in 2021, McClure has continued to rise. In 2024, he was invited to perform as a third quarter showman during the team's world tour. That role is typically reserved for veterans. "No way at all would I have pictured myself in this position my first weeks as a Globetrotter," McClure reflected on Instagram. "But in my third year, I've learned a thing or two from the best." He gave special thanks to mentors Saul White Jr. and Chandler Mack, as well as the entire team for their support. From HBCU hardwood glory to international courts and the bright lights of the Globetrotters' stage, Randy McClure's journey is shared by his teammates. He also plays alongside former HBCU stars like Carl Garcia from Miles College, Prince Moss from Grambling, Asanti Price from Benedict College and Angelo Sharpless from Elizabeth City State University. The post Former HBCU star thriving with Harlem Globetrotters appeared first on HBCU Gameday. Copyright HBCU Gameday 2012-2025
Time Magazine
3 days ago
- Time Magazine
The American Tradition of Trying to Address Anxiety with Parks
As summer approaches, America's national parks are bracing for an influx of visitors, even as deep federal cuts to park services likely mean fewer camp employees, closed campgrounds, long lines, and cancelled programs. Travelers have been warned away from some national parks by experts, urged to reschedule for next year. But millions are still opting to go. Last summer, a record 332 million people visited America's 63 national parks. Based on yearly upward trends, the estimates for this summer are even higher. In a 'hold-your-breath year' for national park tourism, Americans are still turning en masse to the natural environment as respite from the stresses of modern life. The frenzy shouldn't surprise us. With festering worries related to economic uncertainty, inflated costs, and federal policy whiplash, the popularity of park vacations is no coincidence. Rather, the rush to escape to these beautiful sanctuaries echoes a long history of Americans turning to nature for relief from anxiety, particularly during moments of sudden and widely felt changes. In the 1870s, the United States was in the midst of the most spectacular transformations yet in its history. The end of the American Civil War brought an end to slavery and the emancipation of some 4 million Black people, while a slew of new innovations brought irreversible changes to the day-to-day lives of all Americans. New machinery brought advanced manufacturing, jobs, speedier production of goods, and lower costs for consumers. Hundreds of thousands of miles of telegraph cable delivered information at break-neck speed, forever reshaping how Americans accessed news, communicated, conducted business, and envisioned the world. And the completion of a continent-crossing railroad in 1869 revolutionized travel, making it possible to move people and cargo across vast distances in hours, rather than weeks or months. Spurred by monumental developments in technology, industry, and travel, more Americans than ever before—including new immigrants—made their way to growing cities, seeking work, education, entertainment, and exposure to new people, ideas, and possibilities. Sudden and rapid change fired up excitement about the future. But it also stirred anxieties. During this time, American doctors noticed more and more seemingly healthy patients with a range of complaints about hard-to-explain medical issues, including digestive problems, hair loss, sexual dysfunction, aches and pains without identifiable injuries, and profound exhaustion without obvious cause. In response, a widely respected neurologist named George Miller Beard offered a theory. Americans, he said, were suffering from a malady called 'neurasthenia.' Writing in The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, Beard borrowed an old term used to describe 'weakness of the nerves' and reintroduced it to the medical community as a 'morbid condition' afflicting Americans at a worrisome rate. In his 1881 book American Nervousness, Beard also pinpointed the key culprit: modern change. For instance, new communication technology delivered shocking news of faraway crime, disaster, and war; mechanization in industry brought extreme economic volatility and labor strife; speedy railroad travel introduced the real possibility of horrific accidents involving ' wholesale killings.' Even the invention of the pocket watch, a simple hand-held timepiece, fostered a maniacal obsession with punctuality. Americans were 'under constant strain,' Beard warned, 'to get somewhere or to do something at some definite moment.' 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Women patients and doctors, including New York City physician Grace Peckham, successfully argued that the rest cure was not only quack medicine but more harmful to patients than the nervous sickness itself. Thus, it didn't stick. What did catch on was the ' West cure,' a different kind of treatment originally reserved for men. Neurologists worried that the urban environment, factory work and office jobs, and other modern pressures were making men tired, indecisive, and physically weak. On doctor's orders, male patients ventured into the western wilderness, where, it was thought, the natural environment would inspire the mind and reinvigorate the body. Prescriptions emphasized physical exercise, including hiking and horseback riding. The legacies of this are notable. In the 1880s, Theodore Roosevelt, a young, well-to-do New Yorker at the time, suffered from a range of neurasthenic conditions including asthma, and he sought treatment. Roosevelt was so inspired by his own privileged experience of the West cure, and its restorative outcomes, that later, as president, he built upon state park preservation and forest protection acts to dramatically expand federal support for public access to park lands, including National Parks. Most famously, in 1903, Roosevelt partnered with naturalist John Muir —also diagnosed as neurasthenic—to expand federal protection for Yosemite in the Sierra Nevada mountain range in California. Initially, it was urban elite white men, like Roosevelt, who were most likely to have the means to travel and to pay for the therapy of riding horses, hunting game, and sleeping under the stars. But the notion of the natural world as an antidote for the stresses of modern life appealed broadly, across lines of class, race, and gender. 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