Atlanta: World Busiest Airport, Hollywood of the South and Global Food
Pass through the world busiest airport hub, visit Tyler Perry Studios Hollywood South, walk Virginia-Highland bungalow streets and Inman Park saved from the bulldozer, taste Coca-Cola at its 1886 birthplace museum, explore Decatur book festival culture near Emory University, and eat your way down Buford Highway international restaurant corridor.
- 1
Hartsfield-Jackson and Air Travel Hub
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport has been the world busiest airport by passenger traffic for over 20 consecutive years, handling over 93 million passengers in 2022. The airport serves as the primary hub for Delta Air Lines, which is headquartered in Atlanta and carries more passengers than any other US airline. The airport opened its current Maynard H. Jackson Jr. International Terminal in 2012. The five domestic concourses are connected by an underground automated people mover that is the busiest airport transit system in the United States. The airport employs over 63,000 people directly making it the single largest employment site in Georgia. Hartsfield-Jackson has been expanding with a sixth runway completed in 2006 and a new international concourse expansion under study for the 2030s.
- 2
Atlanta Film Industry and Tyler Perry Studios
Atlanta has become the third largest film production market in the United States after Los Angeles and New York, driven by a 30 percent Georgia tax credit introduced in 2008. The state hosts over 400 film and television productions annually, generating over 4 billion dollars in economic activity. Tyler Perry Studios, a 330-acre production studio opened in 2019 on the former Fort McPherson Army base in southwest Atlanta, is the only major film studio in the United States owned by a single Black entrepreneur. The campus contains 12 soundstages and a backlot with standing sets including a replica of the White House exterior. Productions including The Walking Dead, Stranger Things, Avengers: Endgame, and Black Panther have filmed in Georgia. Pinewood Atlanta Studios in Fayetteville is another major production facility in the metro area.
- 3
Virginia-Highland and Inman Park Neighborhoods
Virginia-Highland, a walkable residential neighborhood northeast of downtown Atlanta along Virginia Avenue and Highland Avenue, contains a concentration of 1920s and 1930s bungalows, independent restaurants, boutiques, and bars that attracts both residents and visitors. The annual Virginia-Highland Summerfest draws over 40,000 visitors for art, food, and music over a June weekend. Inman Park, Atlanta first planned suburb developed by Joel Hurt in 1889, was nearly demolished for a highway extension in the 1970s and was saved by organized neighborhood resistance that became a model for urban preservation activism. The Inman Park Festival each April is Atlanta oldest neighborhood festival. The two neighborhoods are connected by the Atlanta BeltLine Eastside Trail and represent the most successful examples of Atlanta intown neighborhood revitalization.
- 4
World of Coca-Cola Museum
The World of Coca-Cola at 121 Baker Street adjacent to Centennial Olympic Park opened in its current 92,000 square foot facility in 2007 and draws over 1 million visitors annually. The museum presents the history of Coca-Cola since its invention by pharmacist John S. Pemberton in Atlanta in 1886. The original formula was developed at Pemberton Chemical Company and sold for five cents per glass at Jacob Pharmacy in downtown Atlanta. The museum contains the Vault of the Secret Formula display and a tasting room where visitors sample Coca-Cola products from over 100 countries. Coca-Cola is the most recognized trademark in the world according to multiple consumer surveys. The Coca-Cola Company, headquartered in Atlanta since its founding, employs over 700,000 people worldwide through its global bottling network and generated 43 billion dollars in revenue in 2022.
- 5
Decatur and Emory University
Decatur, an independent city of 25,000 within DeKalb County adjacent to Atlanta, has developed a reputation as one of the most progressive and culturally vibrant small cities in the American South. The Decatur Square concentrates independent restaurants, bookstores, and bars in a walkable downtown anchored by the old DeKalb County Courthouse. The Decatur Book Festival, held each Labor Day weekend since 2006, is the largest independent book festival in the United States, drawing over 600 authors and 85,000 attendees. Emory University, a private research university adjacent to Decatur, consistently ranks among the top 25 universities in the United States and is known for its Rollins School of Public Health, which played a significant role in CDC pandemic response, and the Carlos Museum of Art which holds the largest Egyptian collection in the American Southeast.
- 6
Atlanta Food and Dining Scene
Atlanta culinary reputation has been transformed over the past two decades by a generation of chefs drawing on the city Deep South location, diverse immigrant communities, and access to Georgia agricultural products. Chef Linton Hopkins at Restaurant Eugene pioneered farm-to-table Southern cuisine in Atlanta and received James Beard Award nominations throughout the 2010s. The Buford Highway corridor northeast of Doraville, nicknamed the International Avenue, contains the most diverse concentration of immigrant restaurants in the American South, with authentic Vietnamese, Korean, Chinese, Mexican, Ethiopian, and Eastern European establishments in a strip mall landscape that has been written about in national food media since the 1990s. The Sweet Auburn Curb Market, operating since 1918, is one of the oldest public markets in the American South and has been revitalized since 2009.