20 years later, Atlanta 30306 thrives

By Chris Schroder

Twenty years ago, I quit my job and produced, printed and mailed the first issue of Atlanta 30306 (now INtown) to 10,000 homes and then took a long nap. Two days later, the phone started to ring with calls from appreciative neighbors who agreed it was time for a positive publication that did a deep dive on what was then an under-reported renaissance of close-in communities.

Today Atlanta INtown is more secure with its fourth owner, though the monthly has all along remained true to our founding principles that people want to feel connected to and do business with neighbors, even as we were all becoming more global.

Hundreds of people joined “the band” to lovingly prepare the 238 issues since then, and each have added their own individual spice to the homegrown recipe. Notables include my sister, some high school buddies, my two children, who wrote columns for years, and Jan (whom I married 10 years ago, a few years after we had both left the papers) and her daughter.

One of my favorite stories was after we started posting content on the thennew World Wide Web. We received an email from a new resident who said he started reading our publication online while living in the Northeast and was so