Well, not *that* far, but it isn't just down the street. To get to the Mall of Georgia we go down 316 West to SR 20 and take that right up to it. It's definitely the easiest of any malls to get to from here.
Yeah, this is a growing area, but it still has the 'touch of country in the city' that Gwinnett had when I was growing up. Both my wife and I work in Atlanta (Midtown / On Peachtree, no less), and love that when we are home we are away from the nonsense of the city. We used to live in Roswell, and this is way better. Almost never hear sirens, which was something you heard at least twice a day in Roswell. You don't have to go wandering down backroads to find horses, and cows, and so on like you did in Alpharetta/Roswell. Not a big deal to most, but my son loves them so it is sort of nice to see them alongside the main roads.
We're not country folk. Born and raised in the city, through and through, but we learned that city bustle 24/7 with small kids is not as much fun as some people pretend it is. We have the best of all worlds here. We can stay small town if we want to, we can go to Athens if we want to, and we can go back towards Atlanta if we want to. We have a lot of choices where we are, and they are all pretty convenient.