There are a lot of reasons. For my family it was the place we first landed when we moved here. All my wife’s friends and activities are in this area. My office moved locations from the north end of the 285 loop to south of the city five years ago. Even before that my commute was about 45 minutes. Now it’s closer to 90 minutes. Having grown up and had an early professional life in Minneapolis, the two most polarizing things about moving to Atlanta, assuming you have a family, are the traffic and the schools. I chose to bite the bullet on the traffic. All the public schools in our area are outstanding. Elementary through high school they are ranked at or near the top in the state. But there are so many sketchy schools in all parts of the metro it’s very hard to find that. I’ve had friends that had kids in a great elementary school but had to move when they reached middle school age as the middle school was atrocious. Private schools are extremely popular here for that reason. They are everywhere. With four children I’m not able to go that route, but have many friends that choose to do that.