Grant Park Neighborhood Association house number sign, ca. 2000.
Atlanta is known for its diversity of neighborhoods, both historic and contemporary. The streetcar connected Atlanta’s earliest planned suburbs to the city. The Inman Park residential district, developed by Joel Hurt in 1890, survives remarkably intact and thrives as one of the city’s numerous, close-in historic neighborhoods. Ansley Park, platted in 1905, is considered the first neighborhood designed for the automobile. Wide streets are a hallmark of this National Register Historic District.
Late-Victorian houses on Edgewood Avenue, Inman Park, 1895.
In the 1920s, the automobile led to a ring of middle–class, bungalow-type houses, and communities two to five miles from downtown. Included in this ring are Home Park and Virginia Highland on the north, Candler Park and Edgewood on the east, Sylvan Hills and West End on the south, and Washington Park on the west side.
"Grant Park is a historical and unique neighborhood. This sunburst sign hangs from many of the older historic bungalows and Victorian homes and is a unique signature of this quickly gentrifying and growing part of Southeast Atlanta." —Steve Trask, Community submission to Atlanta in 50 Objects
Through citizens advisory councils called Neighborhood Planning Units (NPU), created by the City of Atlanta in 1974, residents participate actively and guide decisions affecting their neighborhoods.
