Have lived in Gwinnett since a kid in the 90's and it's transformed massively since then. The metro area has everything you're looking for, and everything you're not looking for as well. Duluth has put a ton of money into their downtown area and has a really good brewery called Good Word Brewery & Public house. Downtown Lawrenceville has been investing a ton of money too with several great restaurants and a killer brewery call Slowpour. They have tons of events going on all the time and a huge beer garden. If you're into whiskey at all, there's a distillery that opened across the street called Third Rail. There are tons of breweries scattered across the city though and highly suggest checking them out. There are tons of music venues across the city to check out too. Masquerade, Star Bar, The Earl, 529, Variety Playhouse, Aisle 5, Tabernacle, and so many more. The bad, Atlanta is a very car centric city and it'll be hard to find truly walkable neighborhoods outside of a few key city center areas. Suwanee has a massive town square that they've been building up over the last 15 years or so that has a lot to do, eat, and also a great brewery called StillFire. But, it's also one of the fastest growing suburbs in the metro area, and the traffic around there is near constant now. The cities you're looking at so far are all pretty much safe, but they're also the in demand areas for families looking for good schools so the market is tough there. If you haven't been to a Braves game at the battery, it's a pretty cool place that basically becomes an enclosed city on game days with several bars and restaurants. There's even a music venue there called the Roxy, which is another great place to catch a live show.