Why I Love Atlanta

I tried to persuade Allen to move back to Atlanta at SXSW, but when I saw his recent “Where Should I Live Next” post, I knew I hadn’t been convincing enough. Time to try again. Though it’s a city that needs no introduction to Allen, who lived here for almost a decade, you might be surprised to hear that Atlanta offers much more than plentiful greenery, lazy afternoons on the porch swing, and some of the loveliest weather you’ll find anywhere. (And no, we don’t all wear giant belt buckles and eat grits…but we do say “y’all.”) Here are six great reasons for startup enthusiasts to head to Hotlanta.

1. Atlanta is affordable. According to CNNMoney.com’s fancy comparison calculator, in order to have the same standard of living that $50,000 will buy in Atlanta, you’d need $88,288 in San Francisco, $64,072 in Boulder, $60,220 in Portland, $63,938 in Seattle, $63,984 in Philadelphia, and $113,782 in Manhattan. This low cost of living makes it a great place to bootstrap a startup-and you’ll still have money left over for a beer.

2. Georgia is a great place for business. Last year, our state made a massive leap from fifteenth to fifth in the Forbes Best States for Business list-finishing in the top ten in four of six categories. Only New York, Houston, and Dallas have more Fortune 500 headquarters than Atlanta, which is one reason why the city’s population has doubled in the last twenty years and is expected to grow another 10+ percent by 2012. Forbes also attributes the dizzying growth to a “growing pool of educated labor, low business costs, and one of the best transportation networks in the country.” We’re educated and it’s cheap, but I’ve gotta be honest and say I have no clue where they’re hiding that world-class transportation system because I haven’t found it.

3. Atlanta is entrepreneurial. According to the 2009 Kauffman Report on entrepreneurialism (reporting on 2008), Atlanta had the highest entrepreneurial activity rate of any metro area in the nation. We’ve got lots of nifty startups to prove it: Band Metrics, Feedscrub, MaestroFM, Chirbit, Krumlr, Twitpay, Spitter, Cloud Sherpas, Skyblox, We The Citizens, and of course (self-promotion warning), Regator to name just a few. Atllogos.com run by TechDrawl has a much longer list of local startups and there are more starting every day as our community grows.

4. Atlanta has a growing tech scene. We not only have startups themselves (see above), we’ve got an ever-increasing number of events and organizations to help entrepreneurs network, get advice, raise money, and come together as a community. You could conceivably attend an event almost every night, but Startup Lounge, Startup Gauntlet, Startup Riot, Startup Chicks, Startup Weekend Atlanta, Atlanta Web Entrepreneurs, BarCamp, and MobiCamp are a great start. New coworking spaces are cropping up left and right with 151 Locust and Ignition Alley being two of the more notable recent additions.

Georgia Tech’s Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) is one of the nation’s oldest, most successful startup accelerators and-after nearly thirty years of highly exclusive membership-has recently restructured to provide support and services to all technology entrepreneurs in the state. Last week, ATDC held two standing-room-only sessions to take suggestions on how best to support the community.

Social media aficionados have plenty to do too-from Atl Tweeters with its 661 members and North Atlanta Tweetup to Social Media Club Atlanta and multiple groups for Atlanta bloggers.

5. Atlanta has the world’s busiest airport in terms of passenger traffic. It serves 89 million passengers each year-half of whom were in front of me in the security line last week. That means that flights to conferences, events, and (if you can tear yourself away from your startup) vacation destinations are both abundant and cheap. One of the arguments Allen makes in his original post against moving back to the ATL is that the airport lacks carrier choices. It’s true that only Delta and AirTran are headquartered here, but the variety and price of flights is still tough to beat. There’s a saying about air travel: “Whether you go to heaven or hell, you’ll have to go through Atlanta.” You’ll end up here anyway, so why not stay a while?

6. Atlanta will never bore you. I don’t work for the Chamber of Commerce, so I’ll keep it brief and say that, like any metro area of its size (5.4 million people-the eighth largest in the nation), Atlanta has its share of art, music, tourist attractions, festivals, parks, events, and fun.

Kimberly Turner is a cofounder of Regator.com and Regator for iPhone, a site and app designed to help users browse, search, read, and share the web’s best blog posts. She is also a member of Social Media Club’s editorial board and a proud Atlantan who would be happy to show you around if you’re in the neighborhood. Contact her on Twitter.