The French don’t think Downtown Atlanta is such a safe tourist destination after hours.
Because of that, the city “too busy to hate” has found itself on a list of U.S. cities foreign countries warn their traveling citizens about.
The Washington Post recently named 16 American cities that governments from overseas suggest that people visiting the U.S. take precautions when touring.
Among those was Atlanta, whose downtown area the French Consulate suggested might not be the safest place to be after hours.
“Be vigilant in isolated areas of the city center (downtown) after the closure of the offices and to focus on the travel by taxi at night,” a translation from French of the warning about Atlanta.
Perhaps the Atlanta Braves considered this advice in their decision to move from Turner Field at the edge of Downtown to Cobb County.
Other cities named included New York (“be vigilant as tourists in Times Square … do not go alone to Harlem or the Bronx”), Los Angeles, Chicago (avoid the west side and south of the city after 59th Street), Cleveland, El Paso, Texas (the British Foreign Office specifically warns against crossing the Mexican border here), Baltimore and New Orleans, despite noting that “crime … has declined in 2013.”