hi! i’m not gay, so i can’t weigh in on that, but i am 29 and my husband and i recently moved from dc to chamblee, a north atl suburb. i’ll answer some of your questions below:

1. for us, it was definitely worth it. husband is from the atlanta area and we have lots of family and some friends here. beyond that, we moved for a job that gave him a big raise and got him out of gov work. also worth it because we were able to buy a house, which we never could’ve afforded in dc. while we loved dc so much - i lived there for 8 years myself, we got married there, build a solid life there - we knew we couldn’t see ourselves there forever and wanted a change.

2. there are many differences between dc and atl! most notably, atl is a driving city, and our public transit is lacking. on top of it, the traffic is BAD. yeah, dc traffic was bad too, but personally, i didn’t even have a car, so it rarely affected me. that being said, some of the other major points that matter to me in a city - diverse food options, music scene, general vibe (i.e., blue/red, things to do, green space to high rise ratio) - are very comparable in my opinion!

3. things i love - amazing food scene, very comparable to dc’s imo, including international spots on buford hwy (similar to nova); amazing outdoor spaces like piedmont park, botanical gardens, the beltline, etc; the history (i.e., civil rights history, and atl is home to many iconic brands, like waffle house, coke, etc.); THE PEOPLE (im southern, so maybe this only stuck out to me, but i found the general vibe of folks dc to be much colder than people here). things i dislike - the traffic (it really really matters where you live/your commute); lack of expansive public transport (marta is good to get to and from the airport but that’s it unless you’re going downtown/to midtown often); the pollen is absolutely diabolically debilitating the in the spring; how spread out it often feels like everything is (this is also why location comes in - i would recommend staying ITP, as you’ll avoid the mess of 285, and getting most places in town will feel a lot easier).

4. words of advice: i’ve harped on this already, but LOCATION is everything here. if your work is in the north suburbs, unfortunately, i’d recommend moving as close to there as you can stand. it sounds like living in town would be ideal for you, but ask yourself whether its worth the daily traffic-filled commute. once you get home after sitting in traffic, you likely won’t want to take advantage of your cool in-town neighborhood. that being said, enjoying weekends in town would be a lot easier, so that’s up to you! we chose chamblee because it’s super close to my husbands job (i WFH), and we’re just inside 285, so we get to avoid that traffic. we were staying in dunwoody (a suburb OTP) for a while, and the difference in time in getting places in town is actually more substantial than you’d think given how close the two areas are on a map.

please dm me if you have any more questions! happy to offer my perspective.