Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Americans have way more yard than they use thanks to damn dogs, hopefully gen Z realizes that actually having relationships with other people is better than owning multiple dogs as a proxy.
Don't put money on that bet. Most women are more interested in their dogs than in men.
I've mostly explored Gwinnett, but they are a lot better at urban planning here than they are in most other parts of the country actually.
The Atlanta area is full of small town centers. If people were smart, this presents the opportunity to get most of your weekly stops in a small radius. If people are dumb, this means they drive across the metro to work in one and live in another. The amount of super commuters I've met here is appalling, they one of the biggest problems in Atlanta, fueling the congestion, pollution, road rage... It seems like about 20% of my coworkers (at a Suwanee office, not downtown) have 35+ mile commutes one way. There's no reason for that, if you don't like where you work, get a new job, otherwise move closer, Atlanta is not expensive, it's 100% lifestyle choice. Denver had less super commuters, thanks in part to the roads being icy enough times out of the year that you'd get screwed if your commute was too long.
In general though, they are really good about building town / row homes out here and that increases density a lot. Then they connect these dense housing divisions with trails / greenways, parks etc. They build out the town centers so that they are somewhere you want to walk around and to not just be glorified stripmalls. They actually increase road capacity here at a decent rate.
It's important to realize that Americans have been spending more time in their homes than they were in the past, and that amount of time is only going to increase, especially with WFH individuals. They want to pay more for bigger homes because that's where they spend their time, it only makes sense. Americans have way more yard than they use thanks to damn dogs, hopefully gen Z realizes that actually having relationships with other people is better than owning multiple dogs as a proxy.
I'm hopeful that the post Covid world holds some of the answers to Atlanta's and Americas urban planning problems. I think the work from home trend will only increase from where it's at now, not decrease, as companies who are trying to bring everyone back all the time are getting a lot of backlash. Even the hybrid models are coming under fire, cause why be hybrid if the people I'm interacting with today at work are still at another location. At a minimum, at least this will allow people to cut out there supercommute some. More preferably though, I hope people who can be fully remote will self sort, the ones wanting space will move to small towns and the ones wanting a city will move to a city.
Those are excellent comments about how attempts are being made to build denser developments in the Atlanta metropolitan area and about how the COVID pandemic appears to have sparked a larger work-from-home/remote work trend.
But I wouldn’t be so down on those who super-commute between their homes in one part of a large major metropolitan area/region and their jobs in another part of a large major metro area/region.
People who super-commute to and from work over longer distances do so for various reasons, most of which often involve them wanting to live in an area where they often may have much emotional investment in terms of wanting to live close to where many of their closest friends and family members may live.
They may also be motivated to super-commute because they and their families may like the schools and other amenities in the area, or they like the home they stay in and/or may be afraid of paying increased housing costs (mortgage and property taxes, etc) in the part of the metro area that may be closer to their jobs, etc.
In addition to wanting to live in an area that they may be most comfortable with for various reasons, the Atlanta metropolitan area (even with the explosion and boom in the television and film production industry on the south side of the metro area over the past decade still) has a noticeable imbalance between the increased number of jobs and employment opportunities on the north side of the metro area and the relatively significantly fewer number of jobs and employment opportunities on the south side of the metro area.
That is something that means that certain jobs (particularly more specialized white-collar positions) that many people may have a professional background in or specialized training for may only exist on the Northside (in white-collar heavy employment hubs like Downtown, Midtown, Buckhead, Emory, Cumberland, Perimeter Center, Alpharetta/Roswell, Kennesaw, Northlake/Tucker, Peachtree Corners/Norcross, Duluth, Suwanee, etc.) in many cases.
Me and others on the Atlanta Forum try to advise people (particularly newcomers) to live as close to their jobs as possible, when possible.
But I and others also recognize that (though we may not recommend it) it may not always be possible for someone to live close to their jobs for various reasons, including family, schools, social networks, etc.
I remember that about 2 decades ago there were a series of special newspaper reports focusing on how Atlanta’s metropolitan sprawl had grown out of control during the decade of the 1990’s when Atlanta experienced a massive metropolitan growth spurt due in large part to the area hosting the Summer Olympic Games in 1996 along with the booming national economy during that decade.
In the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution ran a series of reports on Atlanta’s sprawl and overdevelopment issues that had the unintended effect of eventually severely alienating and angering much of the deeply conservative and right-libertarian populace that historically has dominated the state’s politics and culture to the point that the newspaper eventually banned its journalists from using the word “sprawl” within its pages in about 2003.
During that same time frame, other nationally prominent news outlets ran reports sounding the alarm about Atlanta’s metropolitan and regional development issues, including the New York Times, which ran a notable story bringing national and international attention to Atlanta’s metropolitan and regional development challenges in November 1999.
It was one of those newspapers that reported on a guy who lived in the town of Murphy, North Carolina in the Blue Ridge Mountains region of the extreme southwestern part of the state not too terribly far from the Georgia state line and had commuted daily to a job at the erstwhile General Motors assembly plant in Doraville in Northeast metro Atlanta.
That guy had been making that roughly 120-mile each way commute between Murphy, North Carolina and the erstwhile GM Assembly Plant in Doraville since 1972, presumably because he was born and raised in that area (Murphy and the mountains of rural Southwestern North Carolina) and lived near his family and friends on some land and did not want to give up that rural mountains lifestyle near his family and friends, but wanted (and needed) to work at a high-paying job that was not available anywhere nearby his immediate area.
While I will reiterate that I definitely do not recommend that people make 100-mile plus one-way commutes between home and work, I will acknowledge that there obviously are strong motivations for people to make longer commutes between home and work.
That is especially after I myself in years past commuted over 30 miles between my home in Norcross and my job near/at the Atlanta Airport where I would proceed to drive hundreds of miles all over metro Atlanta, the state of Georgia and the Southeast many days as part of said job.
And many of my co-workers used to commute over relatively long distances from various areas, including McDonough (24 miles each way via I-75 South), Marietta/South Cobb (27 miles each way), Winston/West Douglas County (32 miles each way), Roswell (35 miles each way), the South Paulding County side of Douglasville (35 miles each way), Snellville (37 miles each way), Lawrenceville (45 miles each way), Cedartown (70 miles each way), Macon (77 miles each way).
The ARC is a great organization, but they're a bit muzzled by the State. The booming Northern Counties of Cherokee and Forsyth aren't members, and neither is Fayette. They all should be, in my opinion.
New update as of last week. ARC has already updated their website showing member counties.
Cherokee has been a member since 1993
Forsyth is joining the ARC now.
Fayette has been a member for a long time. They just frequently don't get on board many things that are outside their borders
Supercommuters are a problem, but I can only assign partial blame to the actual individuals. Every possible aspect of the infrastructure/system has been engineered to encourage people to have massive commutes in personal vehicles. All the trappings of the general American Dream thing (spouse, several kids, large, idyllic house) are completely incompatible with any sort of efficient commute. It's just not realistic. How many people can, realistically, get from where they live to where they work either via walking or public transit?
I took summer classes at Georgia Tech once and commuted from my parents' house in Marietta. I took the Cobb bus to Midtown...and had to drive a good 7-8 miles from the house to the bus station and vice versa. Absolutely insane. Well-to-do OTP (and not even that far OTP) residential areas do not have a plausible way to get from there to the central business district of the city. As regional/urban planning goes, it is beyond pathetic and approaches malfeasance.
But what does anyone do? People obviously aren't able/willing to pay $1M+ for a small-ish house intown with questionable schools and hell, a huge number of white-collar office buildings are themselves part of the sprawl. Midtown/Downtown can barely even be considered a CBD. The Atlanta sprawl is so uncontrolled that I'm not even sure any sort of public transit would ever be feasible or usable. It's why I'm, frankly, bearish on the Atlanta region forward. The 'younger' cities like Charlotte, that didn't have the ability to so intensely make the mistakes of 60's and 70's Atlanta, will have a massive advantage as they get to grow with some level of actual livability and long-term thinking built into their decision-making processes.
To be fair, as far as large sunbelt cities go, ATL is 'fairly' centralized.. ..fairly.. atleast compared to like-for-like alternatives.. ..I can only think of a few other large sunbelt cities that may be more centralized (like maybe Miami and thats largely due to its geography of being hemmed in between a swamp and a ocean).
Thing is with Atlanta, as well as many other sunbelt cities, unlike their northern counterparts, they incurred the bulk of their growth after the advent of the automobile and like noted before, their growth became heavily concentrated on one method of transportation.. ..driving, which allows for very sprawly and privatized development patterns. Atlanta did 'try' to install rail and make more comprehensive transit, but the suburban areas simply put voted it down every chance they could. They wanted to retain their exclusivity from the metro and keep their retreat, as a retreat and not apart of a sprawling city. Suburban growth was also fueled by multitudes of other patterns ranging from white flight, to affordability concerns, to desires for quiet living spaces. Atlanta, like many sunbelt cities, simply put followed the market of which was fueled especially from the slow decay of denser northern cities, in providing the suburban quiet lifestyle that folks used to living in denser environments simply put grew into desiring. Technically in that light and approach, it wasn't a 'mistake' but rather.. ..mal-planned for future growth and transportation considerations.
Technically these entities could still be had, but alot more planning would need to go into play on development corridors in the aspect of adding multiple transit nodes and providing effective means of accessing that transit. That would go into the planning and coordination all the way down to a neighborhood and subdivision level.
The 'younger' cities like Charlotte, that didn't have the ability to so intensely make the mistakes of 60's and 70's Atlanta, will have a massive advantage as they get to grow with some level of actual livability and long-term thinking built into their decision-making processes.
Not really. Their local leaders tried to sell this a few years back, but they have similar densities, similar build out of land within X miles of the CBD, they are growing transit... as did Atlanta at that size, and they just completed their Perimeter... as did Atlanta.
Marietta/Cobb in the '70s was very much what Gastonia/Gaston is like today. Almost identical in size, build patterns, and road patterns.
Their suburban office park enclaves, like Ballentyne and other areas near their airport aren't different than our earlier suburban office parks near Perimeter, Cumberland, and Century Center.
We actually did more to aggressively link up the Perimeter area and Buckhead to transit, than Charlotte has done with their respective counterparts related to Atlanta at the same age.
They have some TOD transit near places like Southend, but our past comparable area to that was Midtown that we developed as a denser residential area connected to transit starting in the '70s and '80s and was able to evolve into something far larger.
Atlanta also had a larger Pre-WWII foot print, which left more room for change/evolution of the closer in parts of the city. This is something Charlotte will struggle with in the future.
Charlotte isn't very different from Atlanta when Atlanta was a similar size at all. They haven't really changed much at all yet. I'd say they compare more at the same size, than contrast.
You're just noticing how the Charlotte region is smaller. The North American car-oriented suburban commute maxes out around 3 million people in terms of everyone being able to have a somewhat reliable commute to a single CBD. That is what you're really noticing. All of these smaller new cities will go through the same struggles Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, DC, etc... will when they approach the same size.
Beyond that, most regions grow in a way that puts more jobs in suburbs, whether they are in a edge city CBD or not, making commuter patterns more multi-dimensional.
Not really. Their local leaders tried to sell this a few years back, but they have similar densities, similar build out of land within X miles of the CBD, they are growing transit... as did Atlanta at that size, and they just completed their Perimeter... as did Atlanta.
Marietta/Cobb in the '70s was very much what Gastonia/Gaston is like today. Almost identical in size, build patterns, and road patterns.
Their suburban office park enclaves, like Ballentyne and other areas near their airport aren't different than our earlier suburban office parks near Perimeter, Cumberland, and Century Center.
We actually did more to aggressively link up the Perimeter area and Buckhead to transit, than Charlotte has done with their respective counterparts related to Atlanta at the same age.
They have some TOD transit near places like Southend, but our past comparable area to that was Midtown that we developed as a denser residential area connected to transit starting in the '70s and '80s and was able to evolve into something far larger.
Atlanta also had a larger Pre-WWII foot print, which left more room for change/evolution of the closer in parts of the city. This is something Charlotte will struggle with in the future.
Charlotte isn't very different from Atlanta when Atlanta was a similar size at all. They haven't really changed much at all yet. I'd say they compare more at the same size, than contrast.
You're just noticing how the Charlotte region is smaller. The North American car-oriented suburban commute maxes out around 3 million people in terms of everyone being able to have a somewhat reliable commute to a single CBD. That is what you're really noticing. All of these smaller new cities will go through the same struggles Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, DC, etc... will when they approach the same size.
Beyond that, most regions grow in a way that puts more jobs in suburbs, whether they are in a edge city CBD or not, making commuter patterns more multi-dimensional.
The second-tier sunbelt cities like Charlotte still have time, that's the biggest difference. Atlanta is so deep into its population growth and is still only in the baby steps of working on things like, for example, making Downtown a pleasant place to be. I'm not saying the JV sunbelt cities will make it work any better, but there's still at least hope for them.
Not really. Their local leaders tried to sell this a few years back, but they have similar densities, similar build out of land within X miles of the CBD, they are growing transit... as did Atlanta at that size, and they just completed their Perimeter... as did Atlanta.
Marietta/Cobb in the '70s was very much what Gastonia/Gaston is like today. Almost identical in size, build patterns, and road patterns.
Their suburban office park enclaves, like Ballentyne and other areas near their airport aren't different than our earlier suburban office parks near Perimeter, Cumberland, and Century Center.
We actually did more to aggressively link up the Perimeter area and Buckhead to transit, than Charlotte has done with their respective counterparts related to Atlanta at the same age.
They have some TOD transit near places like Southend, but our past comparable area to that was Midtown that we developed as a denser residential area connected to transit starting in the '70s and '80s and was able to evolve into something far larger.
Atlanta also had a larger Pre-WWII foot print, which left more room for change/evolution of the closer in parts of the city. This is something Charlotte will struggle with in the future.
Charlotte isn't very different from Atlanta when Atlanta was a similar size at all. They haven't really changed much at all yet. I'd say they compare more at the same size, than contrast.
You're just noticing how the Charlotte region is smaller. The North American car-oriented suburban commute maxes out around 3 million people in terms of everyone being able to have a somewhat reliable commute to a single CBD. That is what you're really noticing. All of these smaller new cities will go through the same struggles Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, DC, etc... will when they approach the same size.
Beyond that, most regions grow in a way that puts more jobs in suburbs, whether they are in a edge city CBD or not, making commuter patterns more multi-dimensional.
The second-tier sunbelt cities like Charlotte still have time, that's the biggest difference. Atlanta is so deep into its population growth and is still only in the baby steps of working on things like, for example, making Downtown a pleasant place to be. I'm not saying the JV sunbelt cities will make it work any better, but there's still at least hope for them.
But Atlanta's beyond hope in your opinion, right?
Charlotte is growing exactly like Atlanta did 30 years ago. The only thing they're doing differently is investing in Light Rail instead of Heavy Rail - which is smart. LRT is much less expensive, and the Feds highly prefer investing in that mode now. Other than that, there is absolutely no difference in the growth patterns. And cwkimbro was right, we had the foresight to connect Buckhead and Perimeter by rail to Midtown, Downtown and the Airport. I don’t ever see SouthPark having any rail , it would be prohibitively expensive.
As far as Downtown, yes it needs help - and it's coming. There are literally billions being invested.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
