Midtown Atlanta growth and development since 2010 (live, floors, eat)

[waronxmas]

Originally Posted by Atlwarrior

I was recently on Marta and a heavy supporter of transit, but it was so many homeless people on each train-sleep-a couple of Saturdays ago from the airport. Marta needs some leadership and new processes to get things together. Riders should not have to fight for a sit with the homeless who ride the trains back and forth taking up the seats. I've heard they are refreshing the Midtown stations, but seems like some deeper internally administrative issues need to be addressed.

Name one major city that doesn't have a large amount of unhoused individuals riding public transit. While I wait, I'd also like to understand why it is a problem that they do. How else are they supposed to get around?

[waronxmas]

Originally Posted by Atlanta-Native

Most folks don't want to take Marta, or Uber. Cars aren't going away, nor are parking decks.

Originally Posted by dtyfygiu

This isn't good. Atlanta needs to stop incentivizing cars. But reading these comments it seems like most of the city is content with how it is currently so...

That is a single person's opinion and by no means unique to Atlanta or due to something the city is doing. Some people prefer to drive cars and they don't have to go away for transit to be useful.

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by waronxmas

Name one major city that doesn't have a large amount of unhoused individuals riding public transit. While I wait, I'd also like to understand why it is a problem that they do. How else are they supposed to get around?

Seeing large numbers of homeless people riding public transit is a problem because it makes many non-homeless people deeply uncomfortable to look at, in multiple ways.

Though, seeing large numbers of homeless people riding public transit should not be surprising or unexpected when living in very large major cities and metros with very large homeless populations, particularly during a time when spiking housing costs in many areas (and dwindling housing supplies in some areas) very likely are making the homelessness problem worse.

Other parts of the country, including California and the Northeast have had worse homelessness problems for decades because of their significantly higher housing costs.

Heck, in recent years even before the pandemic, California seemed to have such a limited supply of housing that even some people who earned high five-figure and low six-figure incomes in the Tech industry were living on the streets in vans and RVs because of the often-acute shortage of affordable housing in the Bay Area.

While, Southern California seems to have experienced an increase in its already-high homeless population because of continued increases in housing costs that were already high (and often unaffordable) before recent price spikes.

Meanwhile, a metropolitan area like Atlanta has long been a destination for homeless and transient populations from the Northeastern and Midwestern regions of the U.S.

That’s including from New York where city officials were reported to have been possibly illegally sending (forcing) their homeless population to other cities and metros (including Atlanta) after buying homeless residents one-way bus tickets out of NYC.

New York City ships its homeless population to metro Atlanta (Atlanta Forum, 13 Dec 2019)

New York City’s homeless sent to Marietta, other cities in Ga. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

In any case, the rising housing costs and more expensive seem to be likely to do nothing but make Atlanta’s already significant homeless issues even worse. So welcome to life in the big city...

[Atlanta-Native]

Originally Posted by waronxmas

That is a single person's opinion and by no means unique to Atlanta or due to something the city is doing. Some people prefer to drive cars and they don't have to go away for transit to be useful.

True, but it's also tough to get buy in from folks who would never use it.

[demonta4]

Originally Posted by Atlanta-Native

True, but it's also tough to get buy in from folks who would never use it.

I think we have the answer for the chicken and egg problem of transit in Atlanta. The development will come with or without the transit so there's really no excuse not to expand at this point over fears of low ridership. Build a usable transit network that people will use. It's called induced demand and we've already seen it happen through the large numbers of bikers and pedestrians using the Beltline. It wouldn't have happened if the public investment didn't come before the private development.

[waronxmas]

Originally Posted by demonta4

I think we have the answer for the chicken and egg problem of transit in Atlanta. The development will come with or without the transit so there's really no excuse not to expand at this point over fears of low ridership. Build a usable transit network that people will use. It's called induced demand and we've already seen it happen through the large numbers of bikers and pedestrians using the Beltline. It wouldn't have happened if the public investment didn't come before the private development.

I haven't heard of anyone being concerned with whether or not people will use it as a blocker for expansion. People will, it's just people wrongly believe it isn't worth the investment.

However, you have a good point about what the focus should be now and we don't have to expand to have. Outside of the stations in Downtown and Midtown, there is PLENTY of space around MARTA stations to increase density without overwhelming the surrounding neighborhood. If say for instance a very doable goal was set to add 10,000 residents around each MARTA station in high density housing, we could add 300k residents ITP without the NIMBYs catching the vapors.

[bryantm3]

Hold up, 10,000 people is a lot by Atlanta standards. For reference, the population of Midtown is 17,224. It would be more than just homes in that type of situation, you're talking about building basically a new town center around every MARTA station. That is an interesting idea. I could see it working at some of the places with the large parking lots... they could subdivide those up into tons of small blocks, pave new streets, put in sewers, plot the land out as if they were starting a new town altogether, and sell the lots. You would have to basically not build any parking. And even then, it would be 2000 people max. You can't fit 10,000 unless you are demolishing some of the surrounding neighborhood.

[waronxmas]

Originally Posted by bryantm3

Hold up, 10,000 people is a lot by Atlanta standards. For reference, the population of Midtown is 17,224. It would be more than just homes in that type of situation, you're talking about building basically a new town center around every MARTA station. That is an interesting idea. I could see it working at some of the places with the large parking lots... they could subdivide those up into tons of small blocks, pave new streets, put in sewers, plot the land out as if they were starting a new town altogether, and sell the lots. You would have to basically not build any parking. And even then, it would be 2000 people max. You can't fit 10,000 unless you are demolishing some of the surrounding neighborhood.

Nah, it's doable but it would as you suggest require a different approach to housing that many people in a small area. Luckily we have an overabundance of land and a penchant for bulldozing what doesn't matter to us any more in this city.

[demonta4]

Originally Posted by waronxmas

Nah, it's doable but it would as you suggest require a different approach to housing that many people in a small area. Luckily we have an overabundance of land and a penchant for bulldozing what doesn't matter to us any more in this city.

As time goes on, I see developers getting better at using the land available to them. Howell Mill and O4W are growing beyond 5 story apartments now, and Summerhill is using all of its available land for dense townhomes and apartments. If we can direct more of this toward places like West End, Oakland City, and Vine City, we can get a ton of value out of our land by simply building 10 stories higher than we do now with 5 over 1s.

[Smocaine]

Originally Posted by demonta4

As time goes on, I see developers getting better at using the land available to them. Howell Mill and O4W are growing beyond 5 story apartments now, and Summerhill is using all of its available land for dense townhomes and apartments. If we can direct more of this toward places like West End, Oakland City, and Vine City, we can get a ton of value out of our land by simply building 10 stories higher than we do now with 5 over 1s.

Yup, it's a slow trickle, but the verticality is slowly leaking out from Buckhead/Midtown/Downtown and trickling into needed areas. Atlanta badly needs a wave of overbuilding and it looks like it's finally starting to happen; the number of residential high-rises in the Atlanta area is appallingly low.

I know, I know, "the missing middle", but we just need some giant boxes right now. High-rises are infinitely better than short buildings (sturdier construction, thick concrete floors, better management, good views, better neighbors) and the supply is just hopelessly low right now compared to somewhere like Chicago.