Midtown

Midtown is the second largest financial district in the city of Atlanta, Georgia, situated between the commercial and financial districts of Downtown and SoNo to the south and the affluent residential and commercial district of Buckhead to the north. Midtown contains about one-third of the city's high-rises and some of Atlanta's most iconic buildings, such as the Bank of America Plaza, (situated between Midtown and Downtown), AT&T Midtown Center, Atlantic Center, 1180 Peachtree, and Promenade II. The district is the epicenter of the city's music and artistic scene that includes the Fox Theatre, Woodruff Arts Center, the High Museum of Art, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the Center for Puppetry Arts, and the 14th Street Playhouse.
The Midtown district has been a primary area of growth in the city in the first decade of the 2000s with new condominium units being built, new stores opening up, and businesses and people moving into the area.

Midtown Atlanta is also home to three well known institutions of higher education: Georgia Institute of Technology, John Marshall Law School and the Atlanta division of the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD.)

The definition of Midtown by the City of Atlanta includes:

• Midtown's Peachtree Corridor - the business district dotted with skyscapers, roughly bounded by the Downtown Connector on the west, I-85 on the north, Piedmont Ave. on the east, and North Ave. on the south
• The "Midtown Neighborhood", the area east of Piedmont Avenue and south of Piedmont Park – a residential area of single-family houses and small apartment buildings. It borders the BeltLine and the Poncey-Highland neighborhood on the east and Ponce de Leon Avenue and the Old Fourth Ward on the south – roughly contiguous with the National Register-listed Midtown Historic District

The Midtown Alliance defines Midtown as a larger area or "District" of approximately four square miles that, in addition to the previously mentioned area, includes:

• two of the most affluent historic residential neighborhoods in Atlanta, Ansley Park and Sherwood Forest
• the prominent mixed-use development of Atlantic Station
• the relatively low-profile residential neighborhoods of Home Park and Loring Heights. Note also the "Marietta Street corridor" is included (sometimes called "Georgia Tech") in both the NPU and Midtown taxi zone maps.
• This area has a resident population of 30,000, a workplace population of 68,000, 20,000 students, and about 6 million visitors annually.

The southern half of midtown between 8th Street and North Ave was originally purchased by Richard Peters in 1848 to use the pine forest there for fuel for his downtown flour mill. Over the next 40 years Peters slowly subdivided sections of these land lots off for a gridded residential area and built his own home there on Peachtree at 4th Street. His son, Edward, built his home on the block bounded by North Avenue, Piedmont Avenue, Ponce de Leon Avenue and Myrtle Street. The home, now called Ivy Hall, was restored by the Savannah College of Art & Design in 2008 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.