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I mean this as an honest question. It has MARTA heavy rail but is generally a very suburban city with a relatively small urban core for a metro area of its size.
Also, this brings up the question about Heavy Rail and urbanity more generally. There is a thought that having heavy rail in a city-type environment automatically creates more density, vibrancy, and urbanity. Does Atlanta prove this isn't necessarily the case?
However it seems to me that Atlanta has increased density, vibrancy, etc along the rail lines. Seems to be a more corridor-oriented urban experience, besides downtown Atlanta.
Atlanta is still an exceptionally large city with more than 400,000 people in the urban core.
The core is a less percentage of the metro area's population than most cities, but I think its arbitrary to call it "less urban".
The fact that so many Atlantaites live in the burbs, probably makes heavy rail to get them into the city and back home a more pressing need than a lot of other places.
Atlanta is still an exceptionally large city with more than 400,000 people in the urban core.
The core is a less percentage of the metro area's population than most cities, but I think its arbitrary to call it "less urban".
The fact that so many Atlantaites live in the burbs, probably makes heavy rail to get them into the city and back home a more pressing need than a lot of other places.
Perhaps they need a commuter rail system which can reach over 80 km from center city.
Wow, Atlanta does not seem to have any commuter rail system???
Seems like it would have really been helpful when they had that snow storm!
You would think Atlanta would have more commuter rail and less heavy rail since the former is easier to have park-and-ride service which goes further out from the city. Even if people can't walk to a station, driving 3 miles on local roads instead of 30 miles on the interstate makes a huge difference!
Getting back to the OP's point, Atlanta does show that having something like MARTA alone doesn't cut it. You'd really need MARTA+commuter rail+frequent local circulator buses. The same way that a good road system needs arterials+freeways+local roads.
Atlanta has had grand plans for a commuter rail system for awhile now. The local governments can't stop bickering long enough to get anything done about it.
However it seems to me that Atlanta has increased density, vibrancy, etc along the rail lines. Seems to be a more corridor-oriented urban experience, besides downtown Atlanta.
Atlanta has more density along the rail lines. It has encouraged density in Midtown, Buckhead and the Perimeter Center areas along the north line and Brookhaven along the north east.
But Atlanta has a lot of large lot, cul-de-sac type development that it doesn't want to change. Atlanta has Neighborhood Planning Units that make change difficult. So Atlanta, despite rail and despite heavy development along certain parts of the rail has one of the lowest densities of any major US city. I think its in the bottom 5 of the top 50 metros, basically just ahead of the Carolina cities.
So Atlanta, despite rail and despite heavy development along certain parts of the rail has one of the lowest densities of any major US city. I think its in the bottom 5 of the top 50 metros, basically just ahead of the Carolina cities.
My early impression of Atlanta was "this is what Charlotte will look like in 40 years" but in hindsight I think Charlotte has better planning and has a lot of services consolidated with Mecklenburg County - where it seems like Atlanta has more of an antagonistic relationship with the suburbs.
I would say yes. Atlanta is probably the least urban major city I have ever seen, and it has heavy rail, so yeah.
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