Does Greater Atlanta becoming a megacity concern any of you?

[green_mariner]

Originally Posted by rcsteiner

I wonder if the Atlanta metro could ever do something like this (Twin Cities Metropolitan Council)?

http://www.metrocouncil.org/About-Us...e-Council.aspx

I would hope so. Unfortunately, metro Atlanta's municipalities operate in a very feudal manner. Very little cooperation between them. When MARTA was being built, only Fulton and DeKalb approved. The rest of metro Atlanta counties said no to the MARTA rail. It is like every place wants to be its own little bubble. It would be hard to get such a council.

[0nyxStation]

Originally Posted by green_mariner

I would hope so. Unfortunately, metro Atlanta's municipalities operate in a very feudal manner. Very little cooperation between them. When MARTA was being built, only Fulton and DeKalb approved. The rest of metro Atlanta counties said no to the MARTA rail. It is like every place wants to be its own little bubble. It would be hard to get such a council.

Im curious what is the racial make up of Cobb. Is it still predominately white? I ask because most areas boardering Fulton near the river seem to be black. Six Flags up to Paces Ferry seem predominately black areas, but im not too familiar with the areas north of Marietta.

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by 0nyxStation

Im curious what is the racial make up of Cobb. Is it still predominately white? I ask because most areas boardering Fulton near the river seem to be black. Six Flags up to Paces Ferry seem predominately black areas, but im not too familiar with the areas north of Marietta.

Races in Cobb County, Georgia:

White Non-Hispanic Alone (56.3%)
Black Non-Hispanic Alone (24.4%)
Hispanic or Latino (12.3%)
Asian alone (4.4%)
Two or more races (1.9%)


Read more: https://www.city-data.com/county/Cobb...#ixzz4GCG5Mpjz

[green_mariner]

Originally Posted by 0nyxStation

Im curious what is the racial make up of Cobb. Is it still predominately white? I ask because most areas boardering Fulton near the river seem to be black. Six Flags up to Paces Ferry seem predominately black areas, but im not too familiar with the areas north of Marietta.

It's still predominantly White, but not uniformly so. Powder Springs is majority Black. Austell is too. Basically, places along U.S. 278.

I've been to Paces Ferry. It probably seems majority Black because of Cumberland Mall attracting alot of Black shoppers.

Why do you ask?

[demonta4]

Originally Posted by David1502

It is not very likely that the State of GA will ever be able to tap in to the Tennessee River in the NW corner of GA at the TN state line because of two things:

1. The Tennessee State Legislature passed a law prohibiting the state of GA from tapping into the Tennessee River.
2. The location you are speaking of is actually Nickajack Lake which was created in the late 1930's when the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) built Nickajack Dam. The original river channel is very narrow and a further distance from the GA state line. Also, what incentive does TVA have to discharge water to a state which is not in its coverage area and a Metro area which is more than 100 miles outside of its coverage area.

I'm not trying to be the spoil sport, but what would motivate TVA to give up water which may be needed to operate their dams down river, particularly if we are in a drought situation. The key factor that has to be remembered is that TVA controls the Tennessee River, not as a drinking water source, but primarily as a power source as they provide electricity for a large area which goes from east of Knoxville into Northern Alabama to Paducah, KY.

The sentiments of the TN State Legislature are that giving water to Atlanta will only "feed the beast" and lead to further demands for water later on.

The better solution would be for GA to build reservoirs in the northern part of the state between Chattanooga and Atlanta, but I'm sure there will be environmental opposition to building them.

The state could easily argue that the land never belonged to Tennessee because of misdrawn state lines.

[fourthwarden]

Originally Posted by demonta4

The state could easily argue that the land never belonged to Tennessee because of misdrawn state lines.

Like I said, that'd be a federal court order to fix. Curious though, would that mean that other states would do the same?

Should we go redrawing the states since we have better mapping and surveying technology now? I mean, that'd be a heck of an effort and undertaking.

[green_mariner]

While you make an excellent point that transportation infrastructure is a big challenge for every fast-growing city in the U.S., Atlanta's transportation infrastructure challenges are very unique from other fast-growing areas because of the region's severely-undersized road and transit networks.

Instead of featuring a gridded network of multi-lane north-south and east-west surface roads like most of the other fast-growing metro areas you mentioned (Dallas, Houston, Miami, Denver and Salt Lake City), Atlanta features a regional road network of discombobulated winding two-lane roads supplemented by severely-undersized regional freeway and transit networks.

Atlanta is basically a region of nearly 6.5 million people with a regional transportation network that was built to serve a region of only about 2 million people (maybe 3 million).

How can a region of 6.5 million people like Atlanta be expected to properly function if and when its population reaches 10 million when it currently only features a transportation network built to handle the movements of about 2 million people?

Like others have alluded to, the Atlanta region has generally (but not always) done a very good job of getting by with a severely-undersized and wholly inadequate regional transportation network by encouraging people to live as close to where they work as possible (when possible), encouraging people and companies to telecommute at the highest rates that are humanly possible and by encouraging staggered work times (where people commute to and from work early and late so that peak-hour/rush-hour traffic is dispersed and spread out over a longer period of time and not concentrated within a few hours during morning and evening rush hours making traffic worse during those times).

But adding 4 million more people to the Atlanta region's severely-undersized current transportation network clearly would not be a recipe for long-term success...Especially from a quality-of-life standpoint as time spent sitting in traffic is time that people are not able to do other things (family, community, social, etc).

Atlanta wasn't really built right from the beginning. In some ways, Atlanta growing and becoming a major city was kind of a surprise. I think few people planned for Atlanta to be a major center of commerce. At one time, Savannah was the largest city in Georgia. And many of Atlanta's suburbs are actually older than Atlanta.

Metro Atlanta's infrastructure is not meant to handle 6 million people. However, with alot of cities basically not cooperating, it's a wonder how anything gets done. I-75 almost didn't get built in Cobb County. Basically, the region is discombobulated because it's always been like that.

And the mass transit system stinks for a region of its size. It should cover more areas. I would love to see MARTA expanded. That could alleviate some of the traffic. However, the reason more isn't being done, well, the old "it will bring in the crime" excuse is getting old.

The long, crazy commutes will do a number on one's quality of life. It is stressful. Hard work is expected from anyone. The commutes, however, do a number on a person. The average person spends the equivalent of one work day per week in traffic. And the way metro Atlanta is growing, things are only getting worse. I'm wondering what it's going to take for the region to get its act together.