Why Is Atlanta's Traffic So Bad? (Future Charlotte Development Thread) (Raleigh: restaurants, shop)
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Last year the Republicans changed the annexation law. All of the cities & towns will be getting denser.
I think the opposite may happen? Developers will go out to county areas and build where there are fewer development and design constraints. The markets may not respond since there is quantifable data showing that consumer preferences are changing, but....something to consider.
Last year the Republicans changed the annexation law. All of the cities & towns will be getting denser.
Interesting.
What was the law change?
What are the laws regarding building in unincorporated spaces? Keep in mind that can be effect in itself.
One issue I haven't discussed yet is the role of the Georgia Supreme court.
In the past the south had an extreme view on land owners rights, so property owners could develop as desired.... if you had the money to take the case to court at least. The premise was it was too unfair to undervalue someones property, so they couldn't make the money it could.
In the past 20 years or this has changed somewhat and planners are able to use alot of excuses to curb growth, like effects on watersheds, ground water recharage areas, and keeping rural character areas as a regional resource.
It use to be based soley on road capacity and sewer capacity.
Location: The place where the road & the sky collide
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Quote:
Originally Posted by urbanmyth
I think the opposite may happen? Developers will go out to county areas and build where there are fewer development and design constraints. The markets may not respond since there is quantifable data showing that consumer preferences are changing, but....something to consider.
I'm sure that it will go both ways.
I'm in one of the micropolitans. My city was planning lots of green space. That's going to change.
I've actually put a good amount of evidence on the table. You haven't responded to any of it, but have made tangential arguments with other posters. I thought the maturing suburbs map of Atlanta was pretty telling at how it lines up with Charlotte's urban growth today.
I also thought the density of the urban areas was very telling.
And no our airport wasn't the busiest in the world, neither was yours... I don't see the point?
It was a very busy hub and rapidly growing, we actually chose to completely rebuild it from the ground up. It use to have a terminal very similar in shape to CTL's actually. It was a common airport design post-WWII until the 70s used in many cities.
We would have hit 1.7 in the late 60's we were just over 2 millione in 1970 and around 1.5 in 1960.
At that point in time we did have regional planners and they were planning out a heavy rail rapid transit system, which has led to further growth of urban neighborhoods. It would take a great deal of time to get passed, funded and built,.... but today it moves a quarter of a million people a day. They equivalent of the number of people using some of our widest freeways.
and... ok so fewer cul-de-sacs... cool beans! but the density and the position of new suburban neighborhoods is the same. That is what will push things out over time and is happening.
Hardly the same. You were "planning" for heavy rail...it wasn't actually opened for another 14 years (1979) and then was little used by suburbanites commuting into the city.
The airport is relevant because it's an economic driver for growth. Charlotte at 1.7 million has a major airport, which, like Atlanta in the 1970's, was mostly serving connecting passengers. As it grew, so did the city.
If you can find census tracts for the center of Atlanta that show the center of Fulton County was growing at 6-13% in the late 1960's and 1970's I'd be surprised. It wasn't happening and it wasn't happening because you didn't have development regulations that were designed to create more urban, walkable, transit friendly neighborhoods. It was all about designing for the automobile...
Last edited by urbanmyth; 02-23-2013 at 12:22 AM..
Location: The place where the road & the sky collide
23,814 posts, read 34,693,648 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cwkimbro
Interesting.
What was the law change?
What are the laws regarding building in unincorporated spaces? Keep in mind that can be effect in itself.
One issue I haven't discussed yet is the role of the Georgia Supreme court.
In the past the south had an extreme view on land owners rights, so property owners could develop as desired.... if you had the money to take the case to court at least. The premise was it was too unfair to undervalue someones property, so they couldn't make the money it could.
In the past 20 years or this has changed somewhat and planners are able to use alot of excuses to curb growth, like effects on watersheds, ground water recharage areas, and keeping rural character areas as a regional resource.
It use to be based soley on road capacity and sewer capacity.
No more forced annexation. If it's not voluntary the city or town must foot the bill for an election to decide on annexation.
This was caused by some wealthy folks in Fayetteville who were forcibly annexed & apparently had pull in Raleigh. My city is likely to be hurt by the new law.
Cities have zoning say in certain areas that are unincorporated.
Hardly the same. You were "planning" for heavy rail...it wasn't actually opened for another 14 years (1979) and then was little used by suburbanites commuting into the city.
The airport is relevant because it's an economic driver for growth. Charlotte at 1.7 million has a mjor airport, which, like Atlanta in the 1970's, was mostly serving connecting passengers. As it grew, so did the city.
If you can find census tracts for the center of Atlanta that show the center of Fulton County was growing at 6-13% in the late 1960's and 1970's I'd be surprised. It wasn't happening and it wasn't happening because you didn't have development regulations that were designed to create more urban, walkable, transit friendly neighborhoods. It was all about designing for the automobile...
Well I never claimed that actually. I stated pretty well early on that the growth trend for the time across the US was suburbs. Almost every major cities core areas decreased in residential population size. That I discussed earlier.
However, the foot print of Charlotte is the same, comparatively, it is still rapidly building subdivisions at the edge. It is still mostly an auto-centric city and what it gets from some infill now, it doesn't have in density that some of the older streetcar suburbs in Atlanta currently have and have grown.
As far as the airport... I don't understand the relevance, because it was busy back then and growing and was an economic driver, just like it is in Charlotte. I don't see the difference.
Nonetheless, the economic drivers is -why- the cities grow, but it isn't a reflection of how the cities grow necessarily.
No more forced annexation. If it's not voluntary the city or town must foot the bill for an election to decide on annexation.
This was caused by some wealthy folks in Fayetteville who were forcibly annexed & apparently had pull in Raleigh. My city is likely to be hurt by the new law.
Cities have zoning say in certain areas that are unincorporated.
Interesting. How will that effect future development in unincorporated areas that repel annexation?
The patterns of development are very different. This is the point of the thread. Atlanta, GA's metro is considered a poster child for sprawl, disconnected and automobile dependent development. It may be changing but you can't even get people to vote to pay for road improvements in the Atlanta metro. Charlotte area residents voted by over 70% - twice - to levy a tax on themselves to pay for mass transit. This is a place Atlanta, Georgians enjoy looking down their noses at?
Atlanta's transportation needs are much more complex than Charlotte's. Furthermore, the TSPLOST referendum didn't do a whole lot to actually solve traffic issues. It was pretty much a list of pet projects in participating counties without a whole lot of coordination. Also, too many outlying counties were involved. I voted for the referendum, but I also see the wisdom in rejecting it for a much more sensible, reasonable solution.
And no, the patterns of development are NOT very different. Both have low density urbanized areas with far-flung sprawl and pockets of urbanity scattered here and there; hell, it's the same pattern of development you see all over the Sunbelt for the most part. I've lived in both metros and know what I'm talking about first-hand. I'm seeing what some cherry-picked statistics don't show.
Quote:
...Georgia's county-cities are among the biggest, land area, municipalities in the country.
In the top 40, 4 are in Georgia; only one is in NC.
Yes, and like any county, there's a lot of rural land contained within. The actual urban areas, the cities themselves, aren't all that big.
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