Sweet Auburn, the Old Fourth Ward, and East Atlanta

Between 1890 and 1930, the Sweet Auburn district was Atlanta's most active and prosperous center of black business, entertainment, and political life. Following the Depression, the area went into an economic decline that lasted until the 1980s, when the residential area where civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–68) was born, raised, and later returned to live was declared a National Historic District. Nearby, the Old Fourth Ward and the East Atlanta area have mostly benefited from slow gentrification. Both are nightlife hot spots and home to some beautifully restored houses. Count Grant Park in that number, too, with its lovingly renovated bungalows and Victorians, many of which edge Grant Park itself, one of the city’s green-space gems, which houses the Atlanta zoo.