In-town job growth

[arjay57]

The ATL really needs better transit to and within the huge suburban job centers.

When it comes to job sprawl, few regions have been as gung-ho as Atlanta. During the 2000s, Atlanta area employers sprawled at twice the national average. At the end of that decade, only Detroit and Chicago had a greater share of jobs further away from downtown.

Just one in 10 jobs in the Atlanta region is in the urban core, Elizabeth Kneebone of the Brookings Institution told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

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Brookings reports that 88 percent of the Atlanta region’s low-income population lives in the suburbs, but only one-third of the region’s suburbanites have access to transit. The suburban residents that do have transit access can still only reach about 17 percent of the region’s jobs within 90 minutes, according to another Brookings study.

More...Job Sprawl Leader Atlanta Shows Signs of Reversal | Streetsblog Capitol Hill

[Atlanta_BD]

Originally Posted by noah

Atlanta BD brings up a good point. Many of us would take the bus to work if coverage was better with public transportation to more office areas. Of course this has never been Atlanta's thing but you'd think there would be enough demand to have routes to and from the major jobs centers. I live 1 block from a Marta rail station and work near several mid and high rise office buildings near Cumberland and taking a bus there would not be practical. Just food for thought.

I bought a car for the exact reason you just described: MARTA just wasn't convenient enough and the infrastructure isn't here or consistent enough to fully support a car-free lifestyle to everyone who would want one, or at least the option to not have to drive everywhere every time. I mean like you could be walking on a sidewalk and then it suddenly ends and there's no more sidewalk, so you have to walk in the street, even in some in town areas. What the heck is that? lol.

It would be great to see the core become more vibrant with jobs moving there, but there still needs to be more transit options to support it.