Newcomer's Handbook for Moving to and Living in Atlanta: Including Fulton, DeKalb, Cobb, Gwinnett, and Cherokee Counties

The city of Atlanta is home to some 425,000 people, but the entire metro Atlanta area boasts a population of 4.7 million, with newcomers arriving every day. Recent growth has centered primarily in northern counties of the metro area, although there has also been a resurgence of interest in the more urban, intown neighborhoods surrounding downtown Atlanta. Long been considered the commercial capital of the South, the Atlanta area is attractive to both established companies and entrepreneurs. Recognizing that many new arrivals both live and work entirely outside of Atlanta proper, and indeed outside the perimeter, this third edition extensively covers communities from Alpharetta to East Point, and from Marietta to Lawrenceville. The third edition also presents essential sections on Finding a Place to Live, Moving and Storage, Money Matters, Getting Settled, Helpful Services, Childcare and Education, Shopping for the Home, Cultural Life, Sports and Recreation, Greenspace, Weather & Climate, Places of Worship, Volunteering, Transportation, Temporary Lodgings, and Quick Getaways. A calendar of metro Atlanta events, a listing of Atlanta-related guidebooks, fiction, and nonfiction, and a directory of useful phone numbers and web sites round out this indispensable book. Three maps (Atlanta proper, neighboring towns, and surrounding counties) guide the reader to communities, freeways, and points of interest. In addition to being thoroughly fact-checked, updated, and revised, the third edition includes such new material as:
Cherokee County communities, focusing on Canton and Woodstock
An Immigrant Newcomers section
A Literary Life section
A thorough discussion of intrastate and interstate moves and consumer complaints

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All Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review:
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

very good but could be better, 2007-07-16
I really like this book, and I was glad to see that they included a bit of the rich histories of the neighborhoods of Atlanta. I wish, however that they had included more neighborhoods (no Cabbagetown? Reynoldstown?) and more detail on each of them. Also it might be helpful for newcomers to know more about crime rates by area, ratings of school systems, etc. than is included in this book.


3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

Poorly organized, not worth reading., 2007-06-01
The Newcomer's Handbook frustrated me repeatedly. Had I looked at it in a store, I never would have bought it.

The book is very poorly organized; while there are chapters, the index makes it difficult to find what you're looking for. The editors seem to have assumed that the reader intends to read the entire book from beginning to end; it's not usable as a quick reference guide.

Worst of all, the book fails to mention any other written source of information not already published by the same company. If the Newcomer's Handbook for moving to the USA is this bad, they're doing their readers a terrible disservice by mentioning it.

I strongly recommend the Not for Tourists Guide to Atlanta 2007 (Not for Tourists) instead. The real estate agent we worked with told us that it's one of the best, and I agree. See my review for that book for more information on why.


13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

Interesting... but only if relevant to you, 2006-01-29
Newcomer's Handbook For Moving To and Living in Atlanta
Including Fulton, DeKalb, Cobb, Gwinnett, and Cherokee Counties
First Books, Portland, OR
ISBN-13: 978-0-912301-61-7
ISBN-10: 0-912301-61-9
2005 US$24.95
Travel/Relocation
Reviewed by Frederick Noronha fred@bytesforall.org
http://goabooks2.blogspot.com/

Another book in the "Newcomer's Handbook" series from First
Books warns us that the United States has "a population so
big and so diverse" that making general statements about it
is "almost impossible". This title fills us in with the
specifics of Atlanta, Georgia.

First Books, now in its third edition of this guide, calls
Atlanta "a city that combines downhome southern charm with
cosmopolitan ambiance". It's probably better known worldwide
as the city that was birthplace to an unlikely trio --
Reverend Martin Luther King Jr, Coca-Cola, and CNN! This was
also home, a generation ago, to my first American pen-friend;
Mandy Burr, are you reading this?

There are ten other titles in First Books' 'Newcomer's
Handbooks' series. Atlanta's begins with a useful
introduction to the local lingo and history. Lingo includes
the pronounciation of "at-LAN-ah" (dropping the last "t"), to
concepts like The Bravos (the nickname for the Atlanta
Braves), CDC (the Centre for Disease Control, located near
Emory), the Concrete Campus (Georgia State University), Emory
(pronounced EM-ree, to refer to either the university or
hospital), and other locations, sobriquets for newspapers or
streets, and more.

For those wanting to know the background, there's an
all-too-brief background of how a Creek Indian settlement
called Standing Peachtree became a progressive and
influential city by the early 1970s, and is now battling
out-of-control urban sprawl and increased traffic congestion.

But this is not a history book. It's real utility comes out
of chapters dealing with the different counties of Atlanta
and its neighbourhood. Much value also comes from pages on
finding a place to live, childcare and education, shopping,
cultural life, locally-available greenspace, weather and
climate (including air-pollution and insects), and even
volunteering.

There's a good chance that those needing this book might find
the section on 'temporary lodgings' useful too. If maintained
accurately, the listing of useful phone numbers and web-sites
also come as a boon.

One's earlier review, of a newcomer's title to the USA as a
whole was more fulsome in its praise. This being a bit narrow
in its target -- meant exclusively for those settling in
Atlanta -- the appeal is obviously more specific. But surely,
there is quite some information of a useful nature here too,
provided your target is this city that attracts "a multitude
of newcomers".

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