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Atlanta is not mentioned a single time in the article I linked. Would you mind quoting which sources say what your are saying they say?
Th e Atlanta urban area grew by more than 1.3
million people during the 1990s, for a whopping
5.0 percent annual growth rate. Yet, like
Houston and Dallas, Atlanta has been able to
maintain fairly aff ordable housing. Atlanta’s
economy is much more diverse than Houston’s,
so it has not suff ered a major decline in housing
prices in the past several decades. Prices in
the last seven years have grown by 3.5 percent
per year, slightly more than Houston’s but
considerably less than the national average.
In the absence of restrictions on land supply,
homebuilders have proven themselves
able to meet the demand for housing in the
fastest-growing areas. San Jose grew by nearly
14 percent per year in the 1950s, yet housing
remained aff ordable in 1959. Atlanta, Dallas,
Houston, and Phoenix grew by at least
900,000 people in the 1990s, yet if anything
their housing aff ordability increased during
the decade.
Once again, the least-regulated metropolitan
areas are in the Midwest and the south. Chicago and Atlanta are typical of markets right
near the national average in terms of land use control regulatory environments.
The Chicago, IL, and Atlanta, GA, markets stand out among the average group
with WRLURI [ Wharton Residential Land Use Regulatory Index] values near zero.
Well, that first one is 12 years old. A lot has changed in that time, such as the massive pent-up demand for housing that we're now seeing in the city itself.
For the second, I would be cautious with a notion like 'average land use regulation for the nation' considering our nation doesn't do a good job of using its land efficiently, or in cost-effective ways.
There are tons of abandoned/ semi-abandoned neighborhoods and boarded up apartment complexes just west of Downtown Atlanta that is absolutely ripe for redevelopment (affordable housing?) that might could be made "dense as the Bronx) WITHOUT touching existing stable eastside/ northeast communities (I too love our older, tree shaded Intown Communities) These down on their heels communities are MARTA adjacent and really could be be transformed into an accessible, vibrant, working class area. Just leave the area's lovely trees intact, please. ;0)
sounds like the perfect cure for the egos of those flooding into the city, who think they have some kind of right to turn an urban neighborhood into some kind of country club for the elite. urban neighborhoods naturally have a mixture of apartment complexes, low rent and high rent, single family homes, and the occasional oddball who gets creative with their property. that's the way it was going back forever, and it's how people of many different income levels could live in the same place. now we've got elites writing all sorts of laws and ordinances to quadron off their section of the city into their own personal playground. if they have that much trouble living around people with diverse backgrounds and needs, maybe the city isn't for them? there are plenty of rural and exurban areas where you can buy a lot and make all the rules for yourself. but people are buying their way into already populated areas and using their college education to push out people. this is not a fair game, they're pushing out people who don't have the advanced education, the time, or the money, to fight all these codes and ordinances.
Don't blame the new residents of gentrified neighborhoods for the developments themselves. Blame the developers and the building codes that allow them to get away with that.
There are tons of abandoned/ semi-abandoned neighborhoods and boarded up apartment complexes just west of Downtown Atlanta that is absolutely ripe for redevelopment (affordable housing?) that might could be made "dense as the Bronx) WITHOUT touching existing stable eastside/ northeast communities (I too love our older, tree shaded Intown Communities) These down on their heels communities are MARTA adjacent and really could be be transformed into an accessible, vibrant, working class area. Just leave the area's lovely trees intact, please. ;0)
Why should we encase those neighborhoods in amber though? It's this toxic fight against incremental development that gets cities in trouble. Instead of letting neighborhoods respond to demand in a healthy way, we enshrine them. Instead of letting density slowly be added to handle both commercial and residential, you're trying to force them to adhere to your preference of what they should be.
Trees are one thing (ecological improvements), but wanting to force the neighborhoods to become stagnant is a recipe for disaster.
I'll keep saying this over and over and over again. We have 450,000 people who want to live in our city right now. We have another 450,000 on the way. That's triple our city's current population. Shutting out a full 20% of our city to being able to help handle that growth will be damaging to being able to handle that demand. Yes, as much of that should be concentrated in places that can handle it, but through ACTIVE methods like supporting infrastructure, not through passive, harmful methods like restrictive zoning. That's an important distinction.
.... but wanting to force the neighborhoods to become stagnant is a recipe for disaster.
Let's take Brookhaven or similar as the example. How does leaving Brookhaven at it's current density create a disaster for the current residents of Brookehaven?
Let's take Brookhaven or similar as the example. How does leaving Brookhaven at it's current density create a disaster for the current residents of Brookehaven?
I think many would consider our current sprawl and traffic continuing to increase as it has the last few decades a disaster and that is exactly what you will get if you don't let in town areas grow to meet demand.
Look at Midtown, they keep building highrise after highrise and at the same time downsizing their streets, yet traffic is no worse. If Brookhaven wants to keep a lid on traffic, that is the approach they need to take. Limiting density and wide streets to try to manage traffic is an utterly failed policy.
I think many would consider our current sprawl and traffic continuing to increase as it has the last few decades a disaster and that is exactly what you will get if you don't let in town areas grow to meet demand.
Look at Midtown, they keep building highrise after highrise and at the same time downsizing their streets, yet traffic is no worse. If Brookhaven wants to keep a lid on traffic, that is the approach they need to take. Limiting density and wide streets to try to manage traffic is an utterly failed policy.
I think you are mixing apples and oranges.
Midtown is a commercial district with a heavy duty street grid, with numerous multi-lane north/south and east/west routes. Until recently Brookhaven was predominantly single family residential, with some light commercial and industrial mixed in.
Brookhaven is also very diverse. For example, you've got the craziness of the North Druid Hills/I-85 intersection. NDH is one of the major arteries between DeKalb and Buckhead (and points north on 400). There's Ashford Dunwoody and the area around Perimeter. Buford Highway presents its own set of challenges.
Then you've got choke points like Dresden and the area around the MARTA station, which is mainly just residential streets. They've done a great job with Dresden itself but they are getting close to squeezing 10 lbs of potatoes into a 5 lb sack.
So it's not as simple as widening or narrowing streets. And you can't tear up the built environment and impose a Midtown style street grid. Under the circumstances, managing density is absolutely part of the equation.
It would certainly help. As bu2 said, simple supply and demand.
Interesting. Immediately after the announcement of numerous new dense housing complexes in our area, our home values went up by about 20% in one year after being stagnant or below what we bought for for many years. The coming density has actually raised prices. Good for me, I guess. Hmmmm....
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You see the same problems in places like NY, LA, and SF, where there's such a pent up demand, that the first bit of increased supply actually increases demand as people who'd given up on the idea of living there suddenly see opportunity. Of course, if there was even more housing, then those people would have their chance.
As seen above. And again, I ask...when is it enough? At what point do you say "You know what...there are just too many people living here. Those who want to will need to pay the price or find somewhere else."
I mean, should we strive to be like Kowloon Walled City which had well over 3 million people per square mile? At some point, you need to say "No more. Find somewhere else." If that's "encasing the area in amber", so be it.
There are plenty of cities where people can go live the ultra-dense, crowded life. Why do you want to kill this city for it?
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Originally Posted by fourthwarden
Well, there's quantifiable evidence to show the problems with facilitating those lifestyles. Especially when you try and import it into a city. I mean, how many rural towns have you been through? How many bypassed one-gas-station towns have you spent time in?
Let's see, at last count, I have spent over 2,000 days in more than 180 cities in the US, plus another 860 days in 84 cities internationally. That's just for work, where I spent a lot of time exploring the cities we were in. Plenty more for personal travel. I've seen it all.
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I've done a silly amount of cross country driving, and I've spend plenty of time in them. They're hurting. Hard. It's a lot of things all coming together to make that happen, sure, but the Growth Ponzie Scheme, and the ultra decentralized nature of the areas are, quantitatively, having a negative impact on those towns.
Yeah...you can use the most extreme remote examples to say that living in a suburb 15 miles outside the city core is the same, but you'd be wrong.
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I want to make sure we can include as many people, of as many income levels as possible, in the success of our great city while also securing its financial future. I'm sorry you don't.
I want to make sure our city doesn't lose the appeal it has and become just another boring concrete dense city.
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You'll certainly be hard pressed to find a good example in the U.S., though, since pretty much every major city has the same set of restrictive zoning problems. Simply put, though, it'll end when the prices are stable (including inflation).
Wikipedia lists 132 areas in the US with densities over 10,000 PSM. So, even though we have numerous places with tens of thousands of people per square mile, you still consider their zoning "too restrictive"? What the???
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In Atlanta's case, that point is by taking care of the 450,000 some people who want to live in the city today, while also keeping up with the 450,000 others expected to come here. Meeting that demand would stabilize prices, while surpassing it would lower prices.
So, start building in areas that are ripe for it. Leave the rest alone for now. If the time comes that we need to tear down a nice lot in a quiet neighborhood and replace it with a giant apartment complex, we can cross that bridge then.
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I know for a fact, that you won't solve anything by trying to just ignore the demand. You won't stop the urban migrations by trying to will everyone to live in a detached house on a large lot. You won't lower prices by not building more housing.
Really? It's almost like I never said that.
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Something won't simply happen because it's no longer illegal. You know that, right?
I do. And if it won't happen, then there's no need to make it possible to happen. There are a few things I can go along with because they would be so rare (like a shop...not a bustling business...in front rooms and accessory dwelling units), but I'm not budging on tearing apart SFH neighborhoods to checkerboard them with apartment complexes.
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There you go again, trying to paint me as some big oggie-boogie man after people's land. No. I don't care if a person who owns a large lot has one. I don't care if a person buys a few small lots and puts them together, though if the demand is there for higher density I would be perplexed as to why they did that, especially if they were a commercial entity. What I do care about is this insistence that they must stay large lots no matter what the demand calls for.
Oh, well.
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Again, I'm just looking at numbers. How many people can you move in a given space?
Infinite, almost. Buildings now in some areas are reaching half a mile high. Put enough of those in a small area, and you can house ridiculous numbers of people. But is that really a goal?
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You routinely paint me and jsvh as if we want to force people to live a certain way. You've done it in this very post. We just want to offer true options, and let the cards fall as they might.
"As they might". Your neighbor might want to do any number of things with his property that would be horrible for everyone else. That's exactly the kind of thing I don't like. You are fine with it. Many, many are not. Somewhere, there is a balance, and that is *gasp* certain zoning restrictions.
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And when have I suggested that garbage (an ecological hazard) or large industrial facilities (health hazard) are part of my suggestions? How did you get from removing minimum parking and setbacks to building a concrete plant?
If that's what the property owner wants, and property owners know best, why not? So, you want to keep zoning as far as which parts are residential and which parts are commercial, but you want all residential zoning to be the same city-wide? Just density everywhere?
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We have 900,000 people to house in the coming decades. Half of them are here and want in already. That 20% of the city will absolutely be needed to handle, if not a large portion, at least some of the demand. Even so, that 20% of the city that you want to enshrine is also the portion best suited to, if they wanted, resist the change on a personal property level. I just don't think we should legally bind them if they want to do something else.
So, even though ITP of our city is far, far larger than some of the most dense areas in our country, we need 100% of our space to densify to meet the need for a million people. I cannot tell you how far off base you are. The entire island of NYC can fit in a small sliver of ITP, and it houses millions. We don't need 100% of the city to be highly dense. We just don't.
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Considering how badly you misunderstand my position, though, I really don't think you're in a position to say whether my desires are normal or not. In the mean time, I'll keep following the data and professionals.
Well, considering that on this forum, there are only about 2.5 of you who agree on this, and outside of this forum I might know one or two people who ever talk about density, I'd say, yeah...you're kind of in your own little bucket.
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You know what we already know will make things more affordable? Building more supply to meet demand.
Which creates more demand, which creates need for more supply. Which creates more demand, which creates need for more supply. Which creates more demand, which creates need for more supply. It doesn't end. And in the meantime, you become another shi**y city.
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Originally Posted by jsvh
Look at Midtown, they keep building highrise after highrise and at the same time downsizing their streets, yet traffic is no worse. If Brookhaven wants to keep a lid on traffic, that is the approach they need to take. Limiting density and wide streets to try to manage traffic is an utterly failed policy.
Traffic isn't worse in Midtown? Okay...if you say so. I used to go right through midtown to get over to east areas. Now I go down the interstate to Freedom Parkway and take that around because going through midtown sucks so much.
How much have rents gone down in Midtown with the explosion of density?
Midtown is a commercial district with a heavy duty street grid, with numerous multi-lane north/south and east/west routes. Until recently Brookhaven was predominantly single family residential, with some light commercial and industrial mixed in.
Brookhaven is also very diverse. For example, you've got the craziness of the North Druid Hills/I-85 intersection. NDH is one of the major arteries between DeKalb and Buckhead (and points north on 400). There's Ashford Dunwoody and the area around Perimeter. Buford Highway presents its own set of challenges.
Then you've got choke points like Dresden and the area around the MARTA station, which is mainly just residential streets. They've done a great job with Dresden itself but they are getting close to squeezing 10 lbs of potatoes into a 5 lb sack.
So it's not as simple as widening or narrowing streets. And you can't tear up the built environment and impose a Midtown style street grid. Under the circumstances, managing density is absolutely part of the equation.
Decatur is another good example. They have seen huge population density growth but have been downsizing their streets at the same time.
More density and smaller streets are the key to reducing traffic volumes. Brookhaven is doing the opposite and will continue to suffer as a result.
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