Elbow room makes Atlanta less dense (Druid Hills, Nashville: house, neighborhoods, purchase)

[bu2]

The High Residential Densities of California (and

Some interesting data on lot sizes and home sizes in various metros in the US.

Chart shows Atlanta #4 in average lot sizes, behind Birmingham, Nashville and Hartford, 3 other cities lacking in density. Largest lots are concentrated in the southeast and northeast. Smallest lots are generally in the West, #1 San Francisco, then San Jose, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Phoenix, Miami, Houston, San Diego, Denver.

A separate chart shows Atlanta with the largest average house size (Denver #2, DC #3).

[arjay57]

You have a point, bu2. I was just reading in today's paper about some fellow who lives on one of those massive estates over in Druid Hills. The man even has a mini goat farm back there with its own barn. That is not helping the cause of higher density.

Photos: Gigantic yard sold family on eclectic Druid Hills reno

[Clayton white guy]

The attraction of both the City of Atlanta and her suburbs IS the beautiful, tree shaded neighborhoods with lovely yards. As a Native Atlantan, I would HATE to to see someone pave over gorgeous historical neighborhoods ruining our enviable tree canopy and transforming us into treeless, depressing concrete jungle. There are MANY places in our country that are REALLY dense, just move to one of them if that is what you desire. Even the Spring Street/ West Peachtree corridors here in Atlanta has that "dense feeling" to me, move there. Leave Atlanta's precious tree shaded Intown neighborhoods alone: they are what forms the character and visual appeal of our beautiful city.

[Born 2 Roll]

Yep.

Atlanta may be one of the least dense large major metropolitan regions, not just in North America, but on the entire planet... But at least Atlanta has lots of tree-covered rolling hills and is not that far away from the scenic treasures that are the Blue Ridge and Southern Appalachian mountain ranges.

(The southern terminus of the roughly 2,200-mile long Maine-to-Georgia Appalachian Trail is only about 78 miles north of Downtown Atlanta.)

[Newsboy]

I’ll take Atlanta’s winding tree-shaded streets and large lots over the west’s monotonous concrete jungle grids any day.

[samiwas1]

Originally Posted by Newsboy

I’ll take Atlanta’s winding tree-shaded streets and large lots over the west’s monotonous concrete jungle grids any day.

It’s almost, like, why I want to live here!

[SEAandATL]

Most New Yorkers I know that moved to Atlanta say that they prefer the trees, wide open spaces, and calmness of Atlanta compared to the crammed, noisy, concrete jungles of New York.

[Gulch]

It's not the "elbow room" that's the issue, but massive uncontrolled auto-centric sprawl.

[Forhall]

I kind of like our combination system. Midtown, downtown and Buckhead are dense and getting even more dense. Then as you go out the neighborhoods get less dense and you get more trees, greenspace, etc. It's a nice combination and allows people to basically choose their own density level by how close they live to the core, with places like O4W and Inman Park being sort of a 50/50 mix between some dense development and greenspace with large yards.

[Citykid3785]

Whenever I would watch HGTV style shows like house hunters, when they visited Atlanta I always noticed that the lot sizes appeared to be large and wooded. I grew up in NJ (rural, but not far from metro NYC edge), and we also had large, wooded lots (as confirmed by the OP). Then moving to the twin cities, while not tiny, one had to really go rogue and purchase their own lot if they wanted a large space. Any lot built as a part of a sub division would rarely be more than .3 acre.

My personal opinion is that while density can be valuable, it's really smart design that I appreciate the most. Full disclosure, I do have a nice, large, tree shaded lot in the Atlanta metro that I appreciate greatly.