Why suburbia sucks (Atlanta, Alpharetta, Dunwoody: low crime, mortgages, transfer to)

[neil0311]

Originally Posted by Gulch

Lower density also increases infrastructure costs (longer roads/utilities that serve less people have to be constructed and maintained).

So what's the politically correct solution? Everyone must live in a condo or tiny house, and take the bus?

[samiwas1]

Originally Posted by neil0311

So what's the politically correct solution? Everyone must live in a condo or tiny house, and take the bus?

Don't you know? You actually want this, you just don't know it. This is the way everyone should live and what is best for you. You need very little space, you don't actually need to go anywhere that MARTA doesn't go, and you'll be happier with it. Or so I've been told.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by bu2

Some of his criticisms are very Atlanta-centric. Atlanta takes cul-de-sacism to an extreme. And it takes avoiding building arterial roads to an extreme. That is what leads to the funneling. It also makes the limited number of residential streets that do go through have much more traffic than a different type of system.

Those are darn good points, bu2.

[jsvh]

Originally Posted by neil0311

So what's the politically correct solution? Everyone must live in a condo or tiny house, and take the bus?

No. Just legalize those options for those who want them and cut back on the heavy handed subsudies that are encouraging more car usage and suburban sprawl.

[arjay57]

You know, I ran across this video the other day and while it's not about the ATL it does go to why so many people love suburban life. Over 500,000 have settled in the West Bank suburbs, even though it is a war zone.

They get ER, good schools, affordable housing and a high quality of life.

What I learned from visiting 15 Israeli settlements - Vox

[samiwas1]

Originally Posted by jsvh

No. Just legalize those options for those who want them and cut back on the heavy handed subsudies that are encouraging more car usage and suburban sprawl.

Taking the bus isn't legal for some people? Living in a condo will get you arrested!? Man, that's awful!!!

Those damn unnamed heavy-handed subsidies that only apply to roads!!!

[chiatldal]

Originally Posted by samiwas1

Taking the bus isn't legal for some people? Living in a condo will get you arrested!? Man, that's awful!!!

Those damn unnamed heavy-handed subsidies that only apply to roads!!!

But who really have the issue here?

People who love sprawl want there cake and eat it... that is the problem

They want beyond needed space,........ but also want improve roads, complain about gas prince, complain about commuting and traffic.

All adults have the right to smoke cigarettes that doesn't change it's unhealthy.

Complaining about Traffic and roads in suburban sprawl is like Complaining to the doctor about lung problems while wanting to keep smoking cigarettes.

[chiatldal]

I mention this in another thread....... people move to bad develop areas then later complain about traffic and infrastructure.

As if they are not responsible for the issues......

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by chiatldal

I mention this in another thread....... people move to bad develop areas then later complain about traffic and infrastructure.

As if they are not responsible for the issues......

Well, in all fairness they may or may not be responsible.

Say you move to an area that needs improvement and your and your neighbors work hard for 10 years to make it great. As far as your community is concerned, everything is fine and everybody is content with keeping things just as they are.

Then the developers roll in and decide to put in shopping centers, apartments and office buildings all over the place. Suddenly your nice little neighborhood is overrun with cut-thru traffic zooming down the streets at 50 mph.

Why is that your fault, when you didn't do anything to change things and in fact fought against it?

[abalashov]

Things have changed a fair bit for me since mid-summer, when I last actively participated in this thread. In the main, I've moved back to Athens, GA, where I spent a good chunk of my childhood and early university years. Parents are also here.

Ten years ago, I really needed to move to Atlanta because, let's face it, cities do concentrate economic and job opportunities; the next step in my young, burgeoning career wasn't going to be here in Athens. However, there's no particular need for me to be in Atlanta at this point. I do have a few customers there, but most of my customers are out of state. For the local customers, I hardly ever see them; on the very infrequent occasion that I do, I can drive in.

The more substantial reason for the move back is that Atlanta just isn't a good value, to my mind. Its few relatively inhabitable parts (e.g. Midtown, some of the other in-town neighbourhoods) have seen skyrocketing rents, as the post-crisis underwriting environment has rendered a huge chunk of the population that used to be able to get a mortgage in Bubblenomics days unable to get a mortgage now, thus forced to rent. My 2 BR apartment in Midtown was over $2400/mo.

I'm not adverse to paying rents that are trending toward Brooklyn or Chicago, but if I'm going to pay that, I want Brooklyn or Chicago. Atlanta is still Atlanta; it's just not worth it. In the grand scheme of things, it's still an automobile-dependent sprawl city, and while it's making great strides¸and might conceivably be more livable decades into the future, it's not there today. Isolating onesself in a relatively walkable neighbourhood doesn't really fix the problem; even Midtown is, viewed holistically, still sparse on amenities and built to car scale. The moment I need to get more than ~1 mi in any direction, or leave Midtown (and one must do so for many reasons from time to time), I still have to get in my car. I still couldn't realistically do grocery shopping without a vehicle. MARTA—bless its heart, it pains me to foresake it—is a bit of a joke, comically useless in relation to most places one actually needs to go (not MARTA's fault, you can't build public transit to reach most places when those places are spread out over freeway distances so ludicrous it borders on self-parody). That's not worth paying these kinds of rents for.

Athens isn't exactly the picture of my urban sensibilities. It's fairly sprawling and car-dependent—living without a car here would be very unpleasant, at least outside of the small downtown+university bubble. However, the economics make far more sense. My rent is well under $1k/mo, and that's in a central and convenient location—it can go much lower if I were willing to live a bit further out. If I have to drive everywhere anyway, I can get that anywhere, no need to pay inner Atlanta rents for it. What's more, it's small, so such errands are quick. A life defined by traffic is a rapidly fading memory already. I no longer have to blow half a day on a simple trip to the store (in my experience, a problem in suburban Atlanta every bit as much as downtown—I wish I could get back the many, many hours of my life I've wasted on Ashford-Dunwoody, North Point Pkwy., Cobb County, etc.).

I've also got seriously back into cycling for sport, and commonly take 60-80 mile rides in the surrounding rural bits on weekends. Athens is great for that; bike 10 minutes, and you've got cows, and almost no cars. Cycling to that degree in Atlanta is, if not exactly impossible, fairly nightmarish.

If Atlanta ever grows up into a real city, I'll move back. I don't mind paying for the privilege, but there has to be something worth paying for. As things currently stand, Atlanta's charging 60-90% of real city rent, but does not deliver real city at all.