Pros and Cons of Living in Georgia
Is Georgia on your mind? I hope so! Georgia is a great state We’ve got mountains, beaches, cities, farmland, heat, cold, college sports, professional sports, and everything in between.
Hi, I’m Tim Trevathan of Tim Trevathan Homes and Keller Williams Realty. I’m a realtor in the North Atlanta area and if you are moving to Georgia, or even just thinking about moving to Georgia, I’d love to hear from you. I have helped families from across the US find their home in Georgia. Give me a call, send me an email, and let’s find a great home for your family!
Georgia is a great place to live, but no place is perfect. Today, I’m going to go through some pros and cons of living in Georgia.
First, weather. Personal preference is what determines if Georgia weather is a pro or con. We do have four distinct seasons, which is generally considered a pro. Summers are long, hot, and humid. For most of June, July, and August, temperatures in the Atlanta area are in the upper 80’s to low 90’s with a relative humidity around 70%. Of course South Georgia is even more hot and humid while up in the North Georgia Mountains it doesn’t get quite as hot.
For a lot of people, Georgia summers are a definite con. During the height of summer, when you leave your house it feels like you are stepping into a steam shower. It is that humid!
The winters on the other hand, are a pro for many Georgians. Winters are short and mild. South Georgia almost never gets snow. The area around Atlanta gets a dusting to a couple of inches once or twice some years and no snow on other years, and the mountains see some accumulation yearly.
Unlike some of the northern states that routinely see temperatures drop below freezing during the winter, Atlanta usually has only a handful of days where even the low temperature is below freezing during the winter. Our average January high here is 53 degrees and the average temps are up in the 60’s by March!
If you are love winter sports then Georgia winters may be a disappointment. But if you are tired of snow and freezing temps, then you’ll love winter here in Georgia.
Spring and fall are beautiful here. They are short, lasting only a couple of weeks, but the temps are near perfection. One thing you need to know: pollen. When it comes to spring pollen, Georgia goes all in. Our pollen is thick, yellow, and coats absolutely everything outdoors.
In fact, it is pretty common for people who move here from the north to find that their spring allergies are worse, or that they start experiencing allergy symptoms for the first time. Thankfully, the most intense pollen only lasts for about 2 weeks each spring.
The only con to Georgia falls is they just don’t last long enough. Fall here is beautiful! Great weather, beautiful changing leaves, but it only lasts a couple of weeks.
Okay, let’s move on to the mountains and the beach. Yes, Georgia has both! North Georgia is mountainous, and we’ve got about 120 miles of coastline down near Savannah. Down in South Georgia, you’ll find the land to be very flat. South Georgia is mostly rural, and there is a lot of farmland down there.
The middle part of the state up to a bit north of Atlanta is full of rolling hills, and far North Georgia is mountainous.
There’s also the Okefenokee swamp down in the southern part of the state, Lake Lanier and Lake Hartwell in the northern part of the state, the Chattahoochee River running from the mountains down through Atlanta, and many more rivers and lakes throughout the state.
Georgia doesn’t have a very big coastline compared to its neighbors Florida and South Carolina, but it has more beaches than the land locked states do!
From Atlanta, the beach is about a 4-hour drive and the mountains are a mere 1-2 hours away depending where in the mountains you are going.
Georgia is not boring when it comes to geography, which is a pro for many people. There are so many great outdoor activities to enjoy in Georgia thanks to its natural beauty, but our hot humid summers definitely can make getting outdoors challenging during that time of year.
Everyone needs a job, right? For the most part, Georgia’s economy is a pro of living in Georgia. As with many places, most of Georgia’s jobs are in its cities and suburbs. If you want to live more rurally, that may mean a long commute or a remote job that allows you to work from home.
Georgia’s economy does not lean heavily on any one industry, which is great news when it comes to the states economic health. In Atlanta in particular, there are jobs in a host of industries – engineering, hospitality, healthcare, education, finance, IT, and more.
One thing of note is Georgia’s film industry. While not as storied as Hollywood, Georgia’s film industry brough $4.4 billion in revenue to the state in the 2022 fiscal year and gives Hollywood some serious competition.
Known as the Peach State (despite producing far fewer peaches than neighboring South Carolina), Georgia has a thriving agriculture industry, primarily in the middle and southern parts of the state. In fact, Georgia is the leading producer of peanuts, pecans, and broiler chickens in the entire country. Agriculture brings in almost $70 billion in annual revenue to Georgia and 1 in 7 Georgians are employed either directly in agriculture or in agriculture related fields such as forestry.
With an annual GDP of $626 billion, Georgia has a healthy economy. In 2021, US News and World Report ranked Georgia the 12th best economy overall in the United States. Here are the details: it was ranked 9th best business environment, 17th best employment environment, and 12th best for economic growth.
For context, here are how Georgia’s immediate neighbors ranked when it comes to overall economy: Florida edged out Georgia, ranking 8th, Tennessee, North Carolina, and South Carolina came in at 16, 17, and 18, respectively, and Alabama was ranked 38th best overall economy.
When it comes to the Deep South, Georgia has the second-best overall economy, which is awesome and it has a great economy even when compared to the nation as a whole.
Here is a great chart that shows a bit of Georgia’s economic health in graph form. For the most part, over the past 20 years, and especially over the past 10 years Georgia has had pretty consistent GDP growth. There is of course a big dip back in 2020, but Georgia rebounded nicely in 2021, with the GDP even exceeding that of the years immediately preceding 2020.
Here’s a quick run down of the biggest industry in each region of Georgia:
In South Georgia, agriculture dominates. It is the top industry of the state as a whole, and much of the agricultural greatness of the state is centered here in the South. When it comes to private employers, healthcare is the largest industry with Phoebe Putney Regional Hospital in Albany being the largest employer in the Southern Region.
The Coastal Region may only have roughly 100 miles of shoreline, but it is home to the nation’s 3rd busiest port, the Port of Savannah. The aerospace region is the dominate one here with Gulfstream being the largest private employer in the region.
In Central Georgia, insurance and healthcare are the top industries: Geico and Navicent Health, both located in Macon. There is also a growing aerospace industry in the region.
In East Georgia, the largest private employer is in the education industry, Augusta University. Put, by far the dominate employer in the region is the Federal Government as the headquarters of the Army Cyber Command is located just outside of Augusta. Quick fun fact: the East Region is home of the largest kaolin clay mines in all of the US, with an estimated $1 billion worth of clay exported annually.
West Georgia is home to Georgia’s only auto manufacturing plant, a Kia plant. AFLAC, a Fortune 500 company, is headquartered in Columbus and is one of the largest private employers in the region. Cyber security and aerospace are also quickly growing industries in the region.
Here in Metro Atlanta, Hartsfield-Jackson is the world’s busiest airport and 15 Fortune 500 companies call the area home. Industry here is quite diverse, with a diversity rank of .81, with 1 being the highest possible rank on a scale of 0 -1, with 1 being “most diverse”. Atlanta is also one of the top 10 cities in the country for research and development, with several world-renowned research centers calling the city home including the CDC, American Cancer Society, and the Arthritis Foundation.
In Northwest Georgia, flooring is by far the dominate industry. 14 of the 15 largest employers are flooring related, and 90% of wall-to-wall carpet in the entire world is made right here in Northwest Georgia. Hard flooring is also a large industry here.
Last but not least, we have Northeast Georgia. Home to one of the top 50 fastest growing metros in the country (Gainsville), the University of Georgia over in Athens is the area’s largest private employer. Poultry is a large industry here as well, comprising 47% of Georgia’s agricultural sector. The poultry industry is spread throughout the state but has a very heavy presence in Northeast Georgia.
If you are on the hunt for a new job, Georgia is a great place to find one. As you can see, Georgia is home to a wide range of industries, meaning a wide variety of jobs for job seekers.
Along the same lines, the cost of living is a pro of living in Georgia. For people moving to Georgia from the Northeast or California in particular, the cost of living in Georgia is usually a pleasant surprise. But because the cost of living is less, you’ll find that salaries are lower as well.
For example, the average public school teacher salary in Georgia is $53,000. In New York State it is $66,000 and in California it is $84,000.
So, if you are moving here from a more expensive state to live in, don’t panic if your new job pays less. The cost of living in Atlanta is about 35% cheaper than in New York City and 37% cheaper than Los Angeles.
Now the cost of living could potentially be a con if you are moving from a more rural area and are moving to the Atlanta area as cities tend to be more expensive.
So whether or not the cost of living in Georgia is a truly pro or is perhaps a con will ultimately depend on the details of your move.
A con of living in Georgia is a lacking public transportation infrastructure. We just don’t really have much public transportation to speak of here in Georgia. The larger cities have a few bus routes, and Atlanta has Marta, a train with a limited north-south and east-west route, but Georgia is very much geared towards car owners.
There are a few areas designed with walkability in mind, like the Suwanee Town Center in Suwanee or downtown Duluth, but even in these areas very few people are fortunate enough to have a job within walking distance of their home.
If you are moving from a car-centric area it won’t feel like a big deal, but if you are moving from somewhere like New York or elsewhere with much more robust public transportation, it can take some adjusting to get used to driving everywhere.
Georgia’s schools are both a pro and con. There are plenty of wonderful, well performing public schools in the state and there are many other schools that are struggling.
According to US News and World Report, Georgia falls right in the middle of the nation when it comes to education overall, ranking 26th. However, while its higher education is ranked 19th, Georgia’s K-12 education is ranked 30th in the nation.
But all is not doom and gloom when it comes to public education in Georgia. The 9th ranked public high school in the entire country is located outside of Atlanta in the suburb of Norcross, the Georgia School of Mathematics, Science, and Technology, the 83rd best high school in the country is down in Columbus, and there are many other very well performing schools across the state. There are over 24,000 public high schools across the country, and 27 of the top 1,000 are in Georgia.
If you are curious about the schools in the city or town you are considering moving to, joining a local Facebook group can be a great way to ask residents who have children in the local schools about their experiences.
Let’s talk about sports. Again, whether this is a pro or con depends on you and which sports you like to watch. If you are a hockey fan, you are out of luck. Minor league hockey is as good as it gets here in Georgia. We used to have a NHL team, but they were sold and relocated to Canada several years ago.
If you like football, baseball, basketball, or soccer then you are in luck! Atlanta is home to professional teams in all four sports. If you aren’t a Falcons, Braves, Hawks, or Atlanta United fan then I can’t help you there, but give yourself enough time and maybe you’ll find yourself cheering for your new home teams along side your true home team.
College football is also huge in Georgia and primarily revolves around one team: The Georgia Bulldogs, known as the dawgs by loyal fans. There are of course other schools with football teams, but they have smaller fan bases and aren’t as widely popular.
Diversity is another pro of living in Georgia. Gwinnett County, just outside of Atlanta, is the most diverse county in the entire Southeastern United States. In fact, more than 100 languages are spoken in Gwinnett.
In Georgia as a whole, English is of course the primary language spoken, but did you know that Spanish and Korean are the second and third most commonly spoken languages? About 10% of Georgians were born outside of the US, and another 7% of Georgians are second generation Americans.
Much of the diversity in Georgia is centered around the Metro Atlanta area. In particular, there is a strong Korean community on the east side of Metro Atlanta. For more on that, see my video on the top communities in Georgia for Koreans. There are also strong Hispanic communities throughout the state.
One thing I love about the diversity of Atlanta is the food. You can find delicious, truly authentic food from just about anywhere in the world in Atlanta.
There is less diversity outside of the Atlanta area, but the multicultural melting pot that Atlanta has become is slowing spreading throughout the state as more and more people move here.
Per the 2020 census, Georgia is one of the 5 fasted growing states in the country, with a 10.6% increase in population from the 2010 census.
One more potential con about living in Georgia is its size. Georgia is a big state at 298 miles long and 230 miles wide, meaning it takes several hours to travel through the entire state. That is neither a pro or con when it comes to daily life, but can definitely be a con when it comes to how easy it is to get out and explore all your new home state has to offer.
You can of course do day trips to explore your local area, but if you want to go to the other end of the state you’ll either need to make it an overnight trip or plan to spend a lot of driving time for a relatively short time enjoying your destination.
For example, I live in the Atlanta area. I could leave at 8:00 am and get to the beach a little after 12:00 pm. If I really wanted to, I could spend the afternoon and early evening at the beach and make it home by midnight. It is doable, but for a lot of people that is a lot of driving for not a whole lot of time enjoying the beach.
Georgia is a great state, and I enjoy living here. Whether you know you are moving here soon or are just in the considering stage, I’d love to hear from you. Give me a call or send me an email and I’d love to help you make your dreams a reality.
