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Generally speaking, yes. That sounds pretty suburban to me. Sounds like typical sprawly office parks.
Typical sprawly office parks are usually just that: office parks, not mixed-use developments. Nobody's going to mistake any of those for downtown Savannah or anything, but I just wanted to point that out.
But overall, I agree that very, very, very few people would choose Atlanta or Dallas if they wanted to live a car-free lifestyle.
Typical sprawly office parks are usually just that: office parks, not mixed-use developments. Nobody's going to mistake any of those for downtown Savannah or anything, but I just wanted to point that out.
There have been "mixed use developments" in suburbia since the dawn of sprawl. Basically every major suburban mall in the U.S. will have surrounding townhouse developments, office buildings, hotels and the like.
There are different ways of packing the sprawl, but, in terms of functionality, we're talking about basically the same thing- suburban activity nodes centered around the automobile.
It's like with the "Lifestyle Centre" phenomenon- they're often called New Urbanism, but are just malls with no roof. Functionally, they're the same.
There have been "mixed use developments" in suburbia since the dawn of sprawl. Basically every major suburban mall in the U.S. will have surrounding townhouse developments, office buildings, hotels and the like.
There are different ways of packing the sprawl, but, in terms of functionality, we're talking about basically the same thing- suburban activity nodes centered around the automobile.
It's like with the "Lifestyle Centre" phenomenon- they're often called New Urbanism, but are just malls with no roof. Functionally, they're the same.
I have to disagree. With your standard, post-war suburban areas with malls, townhouses, office parks, etc., they are typically not part of a singular development and have little relationship with each other outside of proximity. While several greenfield suburban New Urbanist-type developments are still insular, drive-to developments, most incorporate the mixture of uses in a walkable area. Once you're there, it's relatively easy to walk from shops/restaurants to hotels and housing. Doing that in many "regular" suburban areas is highly impractical and often involves crossing very busy thoroughfares with multiple lanes of traffic, and sidewalks are often lacking in spots.
Location: The Greatest city on Earth: City of Atlanta Proper
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Parhe
Why does it matter if you use a subway or a largely elevated light rail?
Where it matters is in capacity. Grade separated or not, a single typical light rail car can hold a maximum of ~150 people. In comparison, a single typical heavy rail car can hold 250 people at once.
The "why does it matter" becomes obvious once you do the math to figure out how many people each system could move at once.
Minimum configuration:
DART 2 car: ~300 people per train
MARTA 4 car: ~1000 people per train
Maximum configuration:
DART 4 car: ~600 people per train
MARTA 8 car: ~2000 people per train
It is good to have light rail on it's own ROW, but it just can't handle the same amount of passenger movement that a heavy rail system can.
EDIT: Found a better reference for the max number of passengers a DART passenger car could hold.
Generally speaking, yes. That sounds pretty suburban to me. Sounds like typical sprawly office parks.
A. I don't hate Atlanta; I do dislike homers and people who reject actual data, though.
B. This isn't an "Atlanta thread". This isn't even the Atlanta forum.
C. I'm not sure if I've ever commented in the Atlanta forum, so no.
I have no idea what any of this means. It's all sprawly suburban growth, in Atlanta suburbs.
Whether or not you want to attach a "smart growth" label to something because it's a typical sprawly office park but they built a bike trail or there's a bus stop or a electric charging station, fine by me. It's still sprawl.
An "urban cluster" wouldn't have tons of free parking. It really shouldn't have any parking. It should be built around pedestrians and transit, not SUV riders. There is nothing really truly traditionally urban being built anywhere in Atlanta.
There are thousands of small towsn outside of MSA's on their own that are urban walkable cities.This is true even in Europe where there is no public transpiration but those cities are urban
Urbanity does not equall great public transportation or lack of cars.
Well apparently the experts say differently.I can see you dont understand
Where it matters is in capacity. Grade separated or not, a single typical light rail car can hold a maximum of ~150 people. In comparison, a single typical heavy rail car can hold 250 people at once.
Sure, but you can always run light rail more frequently to have the same volume of people. Low ridership heavy rail system have similar ridership per mile as well used light rail systems. Calgary and Boston light rail both have higher ridership per mile than Atlanta's MARTA
There are thousands of small towsn outside of MSA's on their own that are urban walkable cities.This is true even in Europe where there is no public transpiration but those cities are urban.
I don't know what this means. Where did I say that small towns and Europe don't have urbanity? I thought we were talking about Atlanta and Dallas.
Also, since when did Europe have no transit? Remote small towns in Europe often have better transit than big U.S. cities. The town my dad is from has trains running every 20 minutes, with connecting buses to every corner of the village. And barely a parking lot in the whole town.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Othello Is Here
Urbanity does not equall great public transportation or lack of cars.
I think it does. You can't have quality urbanity if it's a car dependent space. Cars degrade urbanity. You need transit and/or pedestrian orientation, or it's crap, at least from an urbanity perspective.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Othello Is Here
Well apparently the experts say differently.I can see you dont understand
Which "experts" think that urbanity is best achieved by building for the automobile?
I have to disagree. With your standard, post-war suburban areas with malls, townhouses, office parks, etc., they are typically not part of a singular development and have little relationship with each other outside of proximity.
I don't see how newer developments are much different. Just because you build a mall these days with some next-door faux historic townhouses, or some "lofts" above a PF Changs, doesn't mean that the suburban node is functionally different. Yeah, 20 years ago, those fake townhouses would have been more likely to be an out-lot Applebees, and maybe the townhouses would have been across the highway interchange. I don't see any huge evolution here.
Mixed-use is a buzzword without much substance, most of the time. It's also hardly new. The first mall in the U.S., Southdale Centre, near Minneapolis, had the following plan: "Southdale would eventually include "a medical center, schools and residences, not just a parade of glitzy stores."
I don't see how newer developments are much different. Just because you build a mall these days with some next-door faux historic townhouses, or some "lofts" above a PF Changs, doesn't mean that the suburban node is functionally different. Yeah, 20 years ago, those fake townhouses would have been more likely to be an out-lot Applebees, and maybe the townhouses would have been across the highway interchange. I don't see any huge evolution here.
Mixed-use is a buzzword without much substance, most of the time. It's also hardly new. The first mall in the U.S., Southdale Centre, near Minneapolis, had the following plan: "Southdale would eventually include "a medical center, schools and residences, not just a parade of glitzy stores."
Well originally you said those developments were just office parks. Then when I pointed out that they are actually mixed-use developments (and I never argued that this is a new concept), you said that suburban areas usually have retail, office, residential, etc. uses in the vicinity--which isn't the same as having a master-planned development where it's easy to walk between these things within the development itself. You may not see that as being "much different," but it's factually incorrect to refer to such developments as just office parks.
Where it matters is in capacity. Grade separated or not, a single typical light rail car can hold a maximum of ~150 people. In comparison, a single typical heavy rail car can hold 250 people at once.
The "why does it matter" becomes obvious once you do the math to figure out how many people each system could move at once.
Minimum configuration:
DART 2 car: ~300 people per train
MARTA 4 car: ~1000 people per train
Maximum configuration:
DART 4 car: ~600 people per train
MARTA 8 car: ~2000 people per train
It is good to have light rail on it's own ROW, but it just can't handle the same amount of passenger movement that a heavy rail system can.
EDIT: Found a better reference for the max number of passengers a DART passenger car could hold.
While it may hold more people, I don't believe DART even nears maximum capacity. There are issues with DART preventing higher rider ship but I would not say one of them is a shortage of room. Or maybe I just happen to take the less busy lines by chance.
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