In downtown Atlanta, young professionals are flocking to tall residential buildings.

The renewed love for life at altitude is a change that's gaining ground in Charlotte.

Before the first ceremonial spade broke ground on the Metropolis condo tower in Atlanta's Midtown, Leslie Johnson slapped his money down on two adjoining units on the 14th story.

When the building opened two years ago, it promised something new. Every unit would have floor-to-ceiling windows. Standard features would include stainless steel refrigerators and hardwood floors. It would offer easy walks to nearby clubs, restaurants and shops. Most important, it would do all this selling units at relatively affordable prices.

"I'm from a farm in northern Alabama, but I have the city in my heart," says Johnson, a former real estate lawyer. When he saw plans for the Metropolis, "I wanted to be in on the ground floor."

Johnson now works as vice president for Novare Realty, an arm of Novare Group Inc., which built the futuristic Metropolis. Novare has shaped a vertical renaissance in urban Atlanta, and the firm will build uptown Charlotte's tallest residential high-rise.

Like the reflective emerald glass that dominates the 20-story, twin-tower Metropolis, Atlanta's urban high-rise boom mirrors a nationwide surge in downtown residential development. It also offers a shimmering glimpse of what could be in store for Charlotte.

Novare's 35-story building in Charlotte will join two other announced residential high-rises -- the Park, a 21-story building at Third and Caldwell streets, and the Courtside, a 16-story high-rise at Sixth and Caldwell.

Charlotte developer David Furman of Boulevard Centro, who is building the nearly sold out Courtside, said last week he intends to unveil another uptown high-rise condo by spring, likely larger than Courtside.

Together these projects, with the recent addition of Johnson & Wales University, will push uptown's population beyond 10,000 for the first time, up from 5,500 in the mid-1990s.

This rush to the center reflects America's renewed love affair with urban living. Factors fueling the movement include young workaholics eager for easy access to work and play, construction of major sports venues, and a universal contempt for commuting.

Within the last decade, for example, downtown Memphis has grown from a sleepy community to home to more than 10,000 residents. Much of the residential development has been in the form of loft conversions. But the city also is seeing high-rise residential growth, such as the planned 100 South Main, a 28-story tower that includes ground-floor retail space.

After decades of flight to its sprawling suburbs, Atlanta witnessed renewed interest in urban living after it hosted the 1996 Summer Olympics. Before then only one significant high-rise residential building stood in the area. The central city now boasts 10 high-rise condo projects and about a half-dozen under construction or in the planning stages.Atlanta has three distinct urban centers -- downtown, Midtown and Buckhead, which cut a northern line from the central city.

As in other cities undergoing urban awakening, developers in Atlanta typically started with the path of least financial resistance by converting older office buildings to apartments, condos and lofts.

In 1997, Jim Borders, president of Novare Group, bought the historic 1924 Biltmore Hotel and apartment tower in Midtown. In its prime, the Biltmore was where presidents and celebrities stayed. But it lacked air conditioning and other modern features and fell into decline in the 1960s.

Borders converted the Biltmore into offices and condominiums within two years of buying it. Atlanta's old guard appreciated his respect for exterior preservation. The city's newer business establishment was impressed with the speed and results. The project literally put Borders on the civic map.

But it wasn't until 1999, when Novare Group created the Peachtree Lofts out of an old, eight-story Midtown government building, that Borders and his partners hit upon a Midas-touch template other developers locally and nationally are emulating.

What typically are considered upgrades come standard: dark granite countertops, tile backsplashes, hardwood floors, stainless steel refrigerators and fixtures.

The hitch: customers can't order customization during construction.

If you want maple wood cabinets, you have to select a unit on an odd-number floor. If you want cherry wood, choose an even-number floor.

This platinum cookie-cutter approach allowed Novare to buy high-end materials at volume prices and sell units at the Metropolis from $150,000 to $300,000 -- affordable for the targeted demographic of predominately young, single professionals.

Like the Peachtree Loft project, the Metropolis sold out in a few months before opening in late 2002. Borders' Novare Group now has five high-rise residential projects in planning or under construction in Atlanta.

As he munched a chicken salad sandwich and bag of Lays potato chips in his modest corner office at the Biltmore last week, Borders summed up his strategy for attracting his favored demographic.

"Many assume young people want funky or grunge," he says. "But in reality they want something nice and to be very high quality. I mean, their parents are going to come and see this."

Furman, the Charlotte developer, sees Novare's invasion of Charlotte as a validation of, and threat to, his own business model.

"It's good and bad," Furman says. "It's exactly what we do ... cleverly designed units at a modest price." However, Furman gave Novare Group props for helping raise the bar on what comes standard in the $150,000 to $333,000 range.

Successful high-rise residential projects often are judged by how much retail and sense of community they spawn.

To that end, Atlanta requires urban high-rise residential development to include a retail component, designed to encourage foot traffic.

On the ground floor of the Metropolis, for example, a Stool Pigeons pub, a UPS store and a couple of home decor boutiques are among businesses that draw customers from the nearby Dakota condominium and other neighboring residential complexes.

Perhaps the most successful achievement of the Metropolis has been its emergence as a player in the Midtown community.

With well-educated, upper-middle-class residents packed under one roof, a residential high-rise can become a place of influence and help shape the focus and priorities of a city.

Johnson, the vice president of Novare Realty and president of the Metropolis's condo association, recently invited a representative of the police department to talk with residents about community safety and other issues.

Atlanta Police Chief Richard Pennington, a retinue of local officers, two city council members and others showed up.

"All we were hoping for was a member of the police department to come talk to us," Johnson says.

Charlotte does not have an ordinance requiring high-rise residential development to include a retail component. However, Charlotte's 2010 Center City Vision plan encourages such mixed use.

Borders and Furman both expect to fill the bottom floors of their Charlotte high-rise developments with dry cleaners, specialty shops, restaurants and the like.

Even when developers build retail space in their high-rises, there's no guarantee merchants will set up shop.

Retail space on the bottom floor of the Arlington, Charlotte's 25-story "pink building" just beyond uptown limits, has gone vacant since the project opened in 2003.

Residents also have said the building has a 30 percent to 50 percent residential vacancy rate since it opened in 2003. But they also say a recent spate of print and radio marketing has resulted in more people moving in.

Arlington's developer Jim Gross of the Metropolitan Group declined to comment.

Furman, who decided not to buy an Arlington condo after seeing the color of the building, says retail at the Arlington is handicapped because it sits on pedestrian-unfriendly South Boulevard. Moreover, the retail level requires people to walk down a set of stairs, "like the lower level's in a hole."

Although it's too early to tell whether Charlotte's new high-rises will become social and political hubs, local observers hope that at the very least, the new developments will spawn teeming sidewalks and turn a 9-to-5 town into a late-night city.Rich Pacella, a 33-year old co-founder of Charlotte software firm Velocitor Solutions, has dibs on a 2,000-square-foot, 11th-floor penthouse in the Courtside. He's seen the floor plan, which was enough motivation for him.

Although he already lives in a downtown loft at Gateway Village -- another Furman development -- he's eager to move when the new building is finished next year.

"I love the whole idea that you can get to bars and restaurants and entertainment very easily," he says. "You'll be able to walk to basketball games. You'll be able to walk to football games.