Atlanta’s top stories of 2016: celebrities, destruction, Cobb County

This year, Atlantans couldn’t get enough of celebrity homes and banter about suburban traffic concerns

By Josh Green@JoshGreen1234 Dec 30, 2016, 1:36pm EST

We’ve crunched the numbers, and the most popular stories on these pages in 2016 suggest one Atlanta stereotype is pretty accurate: This town loves some celebrity news.

Three of the five most-read Curbed Atlanta stories this year involved celebrity homes (and the sixth was a glimpse at the “Sheriff Rick” house from The Walking Dead, which listed in Grant Park for $660,000 in June).

For better or worse, Atlanta, here’s your Top 5 most-read posts of 2016:

“Real Housewife of Atlanta Sues over Hideous Mansion”

(Here’s the home in question ...)

“Chateau Sheree” needed help in January.

2. “Bobbi Kristina's Home Hits Market, Six Months Postmortem”

...

Despite regrettable murals and wall-stenciling, former UGA football skipper Mark Richt’s home outside Athens sold this year for $650,000 — substantially below asking:

3. “Mark Richt Lists Cozy, Questionably Decorated House for $799K”

...

For people around the world, the following news represented a sad moment in June:

4. “Photos: Beginning of the End for Atlanta's Beloved Masquerade”

...

This was an upbeat moment that signaled back in April that Ponce City Market would finally be finished soon:

5. “First Look: Ponce City Market's Vintage Rooftop Fun Zone”

...

When it came to online discussions, half of the year’s top six stories with the most comments involved Cobb County and the Atlanta Braves’ SunTrust Park.

Maybe that’s just a coincidence. Maybe it speaks to boiling, deeply ingrained animosity. Maybe intown Braves fans are still really pissed.

With its closed-minded history and transit-skeptical stances, Cobb can be an easy target. But you can’t call straight-shooting headlines that generate 100+ comments — one example: “How Atlanta Braves’ new stadium, SunTrust Park, looks right now” — the slanted rantings of biased inner-city media.

Anyhow, this story below was the comments king of 2016, generating classic ATL-versus-Cobb input, hilarious zingers, and pithy predictions that embattled Commission Chairman Tim Lee would be voted out of office later in 2016: