Athens (also known to many in Bulldog Nation as The Holy City, Shangri-La, or Utopia), is the home of the University of Georgia, but it is a bit more than a college town. I'd call it a small-to-medium sized city (except on 5 or 6 Saturday afternoons every fall, when the population often suddently increases by about 90,000 people on their Great Pilgrimage.
) The cost-of-living is fairly low, and in normal circumstances, it is an easy 1-hour drive to the eastern and northeastern suburbs of the A-T-L. However, on certain Saturday evenings in the fall, when the Exodus from Athens happens after the Holy Event ends, it can be VERY difficult to get to Atlanta, due to the traffic from those returning home from the Great Pilgrimage.