AJC Business: New home building boom fuels revival of robust Northside exurban growth patterns (Atlanta: 2013, apartments)

[cwkimbro]

Originally Posted by Mutiny77

Yep...and of course, you can't forget the schools as a positive factor.

The question is, will jobs follow? I think it's only a matter of time. I also wonder if there might be incorporation efforts in the near future as Cumming is the only incorporated municipality in the county.

I think so and they already have. Now how much will they is another question. Forsyth will have limited East-West transportation corridors going into the future that Gwinnett, North Fulton and Cobb have much more of.

There is a pop-up office/light industrial hybrid district forming around Medlock Bridge and McGinnis Ferry Rd on the border between Johns Creek and Forsyth.

It is a mini Peachtree Corners as so to say. https://www.google.com/maps/place/Jo...46d6a87e40bd01

Technically most the office space is credited to Johns Creek/Fulton, but the jobs are right there.

They're also getting many light industrial buildings along GA400 that are priced out of the area between Northpoint and Windward.

This seems to be the first type of job growth growing suburban counties get. You can see it in Henry Coweta, southern Hall Co, Rockbridge, and Douglas counties

[AtlantaIsHot]

Wow, that was interesting and yet disheartening at the same time... We are constantly told that people are moving back to cities, and that seems to be happening for sure. Yet, we are now aware that Millennials are moving to the suburbs. It grows more doubtful as time wears on that people will remain in cities. It seems that they may just be youthful stepping stones and once they hit child-rearing years they move. At least there is some hope that jobs will follow so we don't have so much commuting.


And it was totally depressing that Dawson county is now seemingly emerging as the "frontier" for developers. I honestly think it's time for Forsyth and Cherokee to declare the northern halves of their counties off-limits to higher density developments.

[Pemgin]

Originally Posted by sedimenjerry

I have to believe some of those subdivisions are less about Atlanta and more about Gainesville and Athens. Places along 129 at 85 are about half an hour from each.

I think you may be right. Although I know someone who commuted to Atlanta from Commerce. o_O

That's my idea of hell.

[Mutiny77]

Originally Posted by Gulch

There was one for Sharon Springs that died last year. Honestly, Forsyth would be an excellent candidate for consolidation with the city of Cumming.

Yes it would be, since Cumming is the only incorporated place in the county.

[sedimenjerry]

Originally Posted by Pemgin

I think you may be right. Although I know someone who commuted to Atlanta from Commerce. o_O

That's my idea of hell.

My uncle commuted from Gainesville to downtown Atlanta for a few months. He needed a job. Eventually he found one back in Gainesville.

[bu2]

Originally Posted by BR Valentine

I really wish Vegas would have had prop bets on the end of exurbia. Betting against all the breathless forecasts of the end of exurbia from journalists, academics and other professional suburb haters would have been very easy money. It was obvious to anyone not blinded by their dislike of the suburbs that exurban development would resume once the economy improved somewhat. I read that CL article when it was published and laughed at it and all of the other wishcasts of suburban doom published during the recession.

Cherokee and most of Forsyth aren't "exurban" and never slowed down (relative to the rest of the metro).

[bu2]

Originally Posted by AtlantaIsHot

Wow, that was interesting and yet disheartening at the same time... We are constantly told that people are moving back to cities, and that seems to be happening for sure. Yet, we are now aware that Millennials are moving to the suburbs. It grows more doubtful as time wears on that people will remain in cities. It seems that they may just be youthful stepping stones and once they hit child-rearing years they move. At least there is some hope that jobs will follow so we don't have so much commuting.


And it was totally depressing that Dawson county is now seemingly emerging as the "frontier" for developers. I honestly think it's time for Forsyth and Cherokee to declare the northern halves of their counties off-limits to higher density developments.

City boosters are misleading you. The suburbs never stopped growing faster than the city. The only difference is that the cities are no longer declining. They are growing too, but still not as fast as the suburbs.

The exurbs growth did grind to a halt. Lower prices closer in (including in "suburbs") and lots of vacant housing.

[fourthwarden]

Originally Posted by bu2

City boosters are misleading you. The suburbs never stopped growing faster than the city. The only difference is that the cities are no longer declining. They are growing too, but still not as fast as the suburbs.

The exurbs growth did grind to a halt. Lower prices closer in (including in "suburbs") and lots of vacant housing.

I actually agree with you bu2 (the world must be coming to an end bwahaha ). Pretty much everything I saw was the resurgence of the city center, NOT the death of the suburb.

I was listening to a Switchyards podcast that had Tim Keane on talking about his plans for Atlanta. One of the things he said was that growth was coming to the metro whether or not we want it, or are ready for it. WE therefore need to be prepared to deal with that growth. He actively talked about how, as it is (or was a few months ago when the interview took place), it's the suburbs that are set to absorb that growth.

He wants to change that, though we'll have to see how it all goes.

[chiatldal]

Originally Posted by AtlantaIsHot

Wow, that was interesting and yet disheartening at the same time... We are constantly told that people are moving back to cities, and that seems to be happening for sure. Yet, we are now aware that Millennials are moving to the suburbs. It grows more doubtful as time wears on that people will remain in cities. It seems that they may just be youthful stepping stones and once they hit child-rearing years they move. At least there is some hope that jobs will follow so we don't have so much commuting.


And it was totally depressing that Dawson county is now seemingly emerging as the "frontier" for developers. I honestly think it's time for Forsyth and Cherokee to declare the northern halves of their counties off-limits to higher density developments.

People are people are doing both. People are moving to cities but that never doing to be 100%,





The issue isn't Millennials are being youthful thinking cities are cool and when they become child bearing age they move to suburbs

The issue is white flight, you have already suburban conservative whites fleeing these suburban area areas once they become more moderate or liberal and have larger minority population. to Even farther out areas.





Most of Metro Atlanta growth is minority I know during recession 85% of the overall growth was Minorities. And during the 2000's Atlanta grow half million in blacks alone which is half the growth of the region during the decade.

So one would assume most of the exurban growth would be minorities too it's not, So if Metro Atlanta is less than 55.4% white, and the minorities make 85% of growth of region how do these exurban counties get a majority white growth? For this to happen their have to be a huge white population migration shifting around from the core counties to farther out counties. It's an continuations of white flight, conservative whites flee an area then.... about 20 years later that area has a large minority population, more develop then conservative whites flee again.



But from the article.....

The county seat of Jefferson, says Jay Cleveland, is like Dacula only better. Cleveland, 41, and his wife moved from the Gwinnett County city a year ago after building a house at Traditions, a 1,100-acre golf-tennis community with hundreds of new homes off Ga. 124. He commutes to his truck-driving job in Dacula 20 miles away; she does internet security from her home office...........

They both wanted the traditional American Homeowner Dream: a new house on a corner lot with a 3-car garage and a sizeable buffer from traffic, crime and Atlanta.

Cleveland, like legions of earlier Atlantans, followed the interstates in search of bigger homes at more affordable prices. As Cobb, Fulton, DeKalb and Gwinnett filled up with houses, stores and traffic, residents and newcomers leapfrogged farther north

So it's not Millennials leaving cities moving to exurbs


It's the conservative white population already in suburbs fleeing out pioneering to exurbans areas trying to flee diversity and develop.

And developers are exploiting this as if it something that can be escape, and development & minorities will not follow.

You can live in a suburban large lot home in Fulton, Gwinnett, and Cobb. And there's plenty of land, there's no reason to move farther out. But what happens is Fulton, Gwinnett, and Cobb becomes what they hate about the CoA.

This American dream suburban thing was created in the 50's and 60's. Suburb as these utopias away from diversity, develop and everything a city represents the error is by the same logic cause minorities and develop to follow. The cycle repeats because the fantasy is a disillusion.


So from Atlanta to Gwinnett, Gwinnett to Jackson as if they are not pioneering Jackson into another Gwinnett.

[BR Valentine]

Originally Posted by bu2

Cherokee and most of Forsyth aren't "exurban" and never slowed down (relative to the rest of the metro).

They were referred to as exurbs in the linked article from the OP. There isn't a standard definition of what constitutes an exurb or when an exurb becomes a suburb. Exurb tends to be used loosely as shorthand for outer suburbs as was the case in the article. While I agree with you that portions of Cherokee and Forsyth are suburban, I'm not sure whether demographers would or wouldn't agree with that assessment.

House construction most definitely slowed down and population growth slowed though as you point out was still rapid compared to the rest of the metro and the rest of the country for that matter.

And there was plenty of schadenfreude in the media directed at suburbs and exurbs when reports such as this one were released. Population Growth in Metropolitan America Since 1980: Putting the Volatile 2000s in Perspective | Brookings Institution