What makes Athens, Georgia so darn unique?

So of course, tonight we asked the University of Georgia students, especially the ones closest in association to the creative class…

The downtown is centralized, it has a sense of place, it’s different, it’s walkable, it has arty music scenes, a great country scene, bikes everywhere, it has a dense feel, it has people everywhere, the aesthetics are beautiful, it has diversity, a transient population, there’s a wide variety of live music throughout, it’s a liberal island, the streets and buildings are human-scale, there’s a real mix of retail, and it has a sense of being built over time, organic and doesn’t feel like a real estate development.

Some of the downtown criticisms were that 60% of it feels like a tourist trap, the retail is not for the people who live there, many of the shops sell overpriced merchandise and there’s no grocery store.

Thanks to (left to right) Julia Reed, Jeff Owen, Ross Wallace, Marth Reynolds, Matt Livermore, Hugo Collantes, Denny Aldridge, Ryan Wilson, Addison Godel and Ben Liverman.

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