Fresh Loaf

Estimated cost to turn a once-rowdy nightlife district into the eight-acre, Rodeo Drive-styled “Streets of Buckhead” development: $1.5 billion

Cost of pair of horned-back alligator cowboy boots that will be available at Billy Martin, the Streets’ western-styled shop: $3,750

Cost of lamb’s wool coat for 3-year-old at Bonpoint, the Paris-based children’s store that will open at the Streets (converted from euros): $520

Months between the day that five-star Baccarat Hotel and Residences announced its inclusion in the Streets and the day it indicated it might withdraw: 8

Number of metro Atlantans who sought consumer debt counseling in first eight months of 2007: 27,000

Number who sought debt counseling in first eight months of 2008: 37,000

Average annual salary of metro Atlantan seeking debt counseling last year: $42,000

Average annual salary of metro Atlantan seeking debt counseling this year: $49,300

Number of past years in which average salary of Atlantan seeking debt counseling was higher than $49,300: 0

Sources: Atlanta Business Chronicle, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, BillyMartin.com, www.littlefashiongallery.com, Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Greater Atlanta.

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Torthel: Greenbriar Mall. It’s the most ghettoist mall on Earth. People get shot all the time. I went to the movie theater and right before the movie started, some kids opened the emergency exit door and, like, 10 kids swarmed in. I never see security. Kids just come running down the courtyard and start fighting. You can’t really shop because there’s too much going on with people. They don’t go there to shop. They go there to socialize and fight and steal.

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Lauren & Meredith: Atlantic Station. The crowd was a little funny. They’re very judgmental. We’re a couple and if we show any signs of affection in public there, it was not good. We were looked down upon. Pretty conservative, in what I thought would be a more liberal area. People stare at you. It starts at the face. It goes down to the hands. They keep on turning like, ‘Oh, they’re not just sisters.’ And it didn’t feel very Christmasy. There was a Christmas tree, and that was it.

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Tony: Lenox Square. It’s the cheese mall factor. It’s like the women all look the same. You can be standing next to somebody and they’re standing next to the mannequin and you look at the mannequin and think it’s them. It just looks like a bunch of mannequins roaming around a cheese mall. Everybody walks and looks like they’re a superstar. The dude working at the gas station there looks like he’s a big pimpin’ dude. To be different, you’ve got to be like a mutant.

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