How and Why has Atlanta Grown So Much? (fit in, apartment)

[normie]

"If this forum is any indicator of the overall American mindset, people wet their pants over big-box stores, massive parking lots, gridlocked freeways, and vinyl-sided tract-housing (hence Greater Atlanta's current struggles with water). "

Ummm, I'm not sure if you're claiming Atlanta's water shortage is the result of vinyl siding... or people wetting their pants... LOL!

I think almost everyone else thinks the water situation is the result of a drought. A temporary drought, at that.

Anyway, I just wanted to note that you have my sympathy in your ongoing battle to get people to move back into the city of Scranton. I get the sense that you are serious with this goal, so I thought I'd give you a suggestion.

Since you have identified things that people seem to want (big-box stores, massive parking lots, and vinyl-sided tract-housing) perhaps those are some things you should try to put into inner city neighborhoods. Or find places where they exist and show THAT to the people you are begging to return to the city. If people have left your city in search of these things, don't waste your breath getting mad about it. Ranting and raving won't change people's minds about what they want... if you want them back in the city you have to find ways to give them what they want.

As pretty as historic homes are, most people wouldn't want to own one. They are maintenance hungry money pits and photos of old buildings, while beautiful and interesting for tourists, won't lure a lot of people to move back into a city. Show people that they can find ample parking and the stores that sell the items they actually buy (aka a Big Box Store) AS WELL AS the pretty architecture, and (according to your own observations about what people want) you'll get better results. Just my two cents.

[HighPlainsDrifter73]

ScrantonWilkesBarre,

Sorry to say, but I think you are beating a dead horse about revitalizing every declining inner city. Nearly everyone I know who lives in the suburbs would never go back to the city. Most all my friends were born and raised in Chicago. Some of their parents still live there, but are planning on moving for retirement - where, somewhere out of state where it's warm - and definitely not to another city.

My friends who are in the suburbs are raising kids and want 'something better for them'. They don't feel that Chicago's school system is the type of education they want. They want their kids to have a big back yard - something they didn't have. They don't want crime and graffiti around or any gang influence. You can't blame them for wanting better for their kids. They don't view their kids as a social experiment or pawn in the desire to renew inner cities. In fact, most don't give a **it what happens to Chicago or any other city - those are the hard facts. Maybe someday, inner cities will be more family friendly, but most don't view it that way now.

I firmly believe that people largely prefer a suburban living arrangement, given a choice. Some of my friends have 5 people in a family driving with each person having their own car. Sure, you can say that in a city you may not need a car, but everyone of driving age wants one. It is a symbol of freedom of mobility and independence. People value that. Trying telling a 16-year old to use the bus or walk around - fat chance.

Whole generations have grown up in suburbia and sprawl and that is all they know. Perhaps that is all they want to know. You have to ask yourself, why did people move to the suburbs and sprawl to begin with? There has to be a reason. Maybe the vast majority really do like it, in spite of its flaws. That's just the way it is. There is a considerable amount of affluence in this country now and many families, especially with 2 professional level incomes can afford big McMansions. It's an individual choice. No one forced these people to move to the suburbs. No one held a gun to their head forcing them to move.

I realize that much of the flight to suburbia, especially in the '60s and '70s was a result of 'white flight'. That's exactly why my parents moved our family out of Chicago. It may not be politically correct, but those are the facts. This probably started the whole suburban trend and it still continues to this day. In my area here, the sprawl is insane and shows no sign of letting up. The boundaries of sprawl around Chicago just keep pushing outward in all directions.

[Vampgrrl]

Why is it that in some places in Europe, the city is the place to live where as the poorer areas lay just outside the city proper (like Paris for example).

Suburbia is a joke, especially since they in most cases aren't real towns, just gathering points for strip malls and major highway intersections. We don't know or care to understand the value in creating city and town environments that add to the culture, walk ability, sense of community...plus with gas prices rising and tract homes being clustered together without any quality of architecture...
What in the hell are we doing to our nation?

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by Vampgrrl

What in the hell are we doing to our nation?

As you can see on this forum, nobody really cares as long as they can still drive their Hummers between their cul-de-sacs and Wal-Mart.

[normie]

High Plains Drifter, that was beautifully stated. My sentiments exactly! I would add one thought, though: perhaps white flight was a reason to move to the suburbs 40 years ago. But during the 40 years that followed, people of every race also moved out to the same suburbs. And people moving here from around the world chose to move to the suburbs. As a result, most suburbs these days are integrated.

The neighborhood I live in is typical upper middle class suburbia. We have 27 houses in our cluster. 3-4 families are black, about a third of the families are oriental, and quite a few people from India and the Middle East live here as well. Several marriages are inter-racial. I hear that white flight is still going on in some parts of the country but that's not what I see. IMO, race is not a big deal anymore.

[Vampgrrl]

I still see it, white people seem to be split pretty evenly between the I could care less crowd and the holy crap, it's a dark man walking this way, RUN! (I'm white btw)

Either way you could not decorate the inside of your living space nor would you keep it in the same manner that we design and keep our outdoor spaces in this country. As someone some of you might be familar with once said, we have people dying overseas and do we really want their last memory of home to be the curbcut at the Chuck E Cheese? We have GOT to do better. W
We are a nation of the lowest common denominator, we accept **** sold to us by advertising and we live in crap sold to us by developers. I'm definately no anticapitist but this is NOT the greatest country on the planet any longer. It may have the greatest potential...but we are pathetic.
As long as we get our little fake facade house, our overdrawn credit cards and our shopping trips in the SUV on Saturday...who cares, right?

At some point the American dream became this above garbage ^ and people are so tied into that belief they would rather die than see anything actually change.

[st. louie louie]

Some people do not want a lot of contact with other people especially when they're home. They don't mind driving, they feel safe in their cars. They like the convenience of a large parking lot. They like a larger yard and a new (poorly constructed) house. And that's okay, except that when you times that by 50 million it puts strain on the environment. I don't know if an answer lies in gov't regulation or if people who choose that type of housing should pay more for the damages it may cause.

I live in a neighborhood with single family homes and townhomes. There are probably about 50 people living in an acre around me. And while I can walk to restaurants, parks, etc., I still have to drive to a grocery store. (though with a new one being built , the drive may take a whole two minutes.)

And Atlanta is not all sprawl. There are some nice neighborhoods and I think some leaders and people are addressing their growth problems.

[Vampgrrl]

Atlanta proper isn't sprawl except that it's automobile driven and I don't see anyway you can undo that.
Metro atlanta is ALL sprawl.

A city that came of age during the automobile era post WW2, I don't see or understand how that's fixable. People aren't going to get on MARTA as a rule (and it doesn't go out to the burbs anyhow). (I'm from Atlanta originally btw)

Problem is, people would rather die than change, and the suburbia existence is the American Dream as it was taught to them by their parents. I can only imagine this started in the 1950s...I don't see any easy way to undo it, unless gas spikes to $5+ a gallon. And I'm almost at the point that I hope I see it happen.

[Lakewooder]

Scranton and Vamp -- Thank You. My thoughts exactly. The sub-urban people think that the cities should take care of all the problems, provide cultural facilities and transportation then they criticize them. I am tired of subsidizing their wasteful, polluting, export and outsourced slave-labor marterialistic and many times racist lifestyles.

[normie]

"As someone some of you might be familar with once said, we have people dying overseas and do we really want their last memory of home to be the curbcut at the Chuck E Cheese? We have GOT to do better."

You're right, it's so much more noble and lofty for a dying soldier's last memory to be of some smart growth condos. As his life passes before his eyes, I'm sure his thoughts are centered on which skyline has the best architecture.

LOL, I get your point but had to laugh at the argument. Becuase, to be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if plenty of people DO have final thoughts about Chuck E. Cheese--of fun memories going there as a child (or taking his kids there). That doesn't seem like a bad final memory to me.