Spent some time in Brookhaven today

[Iconographer]

Originally Posted by PKCorey

I have never seen any sidewalks in any Dekalb County subdivision. Maybe, I'm not looking hard enough but here on the southside of Dekalb County almost every subdivision that I drive past is sidewalks less. The main road will have it but not the street.

The one side sidewalk is new to me. In Baltimore, all the subdivision always had sidewalks on both sides of the streets. Even, alot of the main roads have sidewalks unlike here too in the suburbs. In my old neighborhood, most of it was walkable minus a few main roads but 90% of it was walkable unlike here. Even in areas that don't have alot of foot traffic. Most places, you have to walk in the grass etc etc.

There aren't many. Sidewalks seemed to fall out of vogue in subdivision development after 1960. Druid Hills has sidewalks, of course, as do most neighborhoods in the city of Decatur.
I remember that when my parents decided to build a home in 1962, they chose the Victoria Estates neighborhood north of Emory as it was one of the only developments in DeKalb County that had sidewalks.
In the last decade or so, the county has been putting in sidewalks, at least on some of the more traveled roads. I know that during the years I lived in Oak Grove, a lot of sidewalks were put into that neighborhood as well as Sagamore Hills.

[RainyRainyDay]

Originally Posted by aries4118

Really?

I know Loch Highland is without sidewalks--the neighborhood was started in the mid/early 1970's prior to the sidewalk requirement. The 70's contemporary craze!

Westchester and Garrison Oaks--you say portions...but, how much? I know that sidewalks were/are required, but I also know developers have/had a lot of leeway in meeting the requirement..and most do go for the minimal benchmark.

I'm totally surprised about Hedgerow though. Hedgerow was built by the same development company (Cotton States) as the subdivision I grew up in--and at the same time to a period of time after. Are you sure about this, Lady Rain? I want to go take a look--but if you say so, Rainy, I'll believe you.


In the area of East Cobb where I grew up, you can totally tell when the sidewalk requirement was implemented. And--almost all are universally on one side of the street!


(Oh, and I think smaller, one-street neighborhoods are pretty much exempt...)

I walk through a portion of Hedgerow V almost every evening, and can assuredly report that Hedgerow V has quite a few streets, but is completely without sidewalks. I stopped at a yard sale in one of the other Hedgerows once, and I'm pretty sure I didn't see any sidewalks in there either.

Westchester and Garrison Oaks have rather skimpy amounts of sidewalk. For example, Westchester has sidewalk the length of Burnleigh Chase and on a couple of other streets that flow off it, but no sidewalk at all on the big main loop, Westchester Crossing. So Westchester kids can't get to the pool (which is a nice one, by the way) on a sidewalk. Princeton Cove (another newer subdivision near my home) has sidewalk all down the length of Gilhams Rd (the portion in Princeton Cove) but not on most of the other streets.

I wonder if the developers of some of the subdivisions around me satisfied all or part of their sidewalk construction requirement by putting sidewalk on the portions of Mabry adjacent to their subdivisions.

As a walker, I find it disappointing that even where there is sidewalk inside one of these sizable subdivisions, it doesn't cover a complete loop but tends instead to just follow one main street. So unless you like to retrace your steps, you can't take a decent walk without venturing out of the sidewalk zone.