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Questioning Why We Live Where We Live in Atlanta
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7 Last Things #2: a few final thoughts about Atlanta as I retire the ATL Urbanist blog after 5 and a half years.While doing research for blog posts over the years, I’ve looked at a lot of mapped demographic data about Atlanta. The most striking images I’ve come across in that time are the ones that show the divided concentrations of races and economic classes throughout the city. This division is something that has come to concern me more and more in recent years, and I wonder if it’s an issue that we talk about, as a city, as often as we should.There are certainly Atlanta neighborhoods where diversity can be found. In the area around Woodruff Park where we live, you can’t walk four blocks on a busy afternoon without passing a variety of people who represent different cultures, races, and age and economic groups. But research tells us that this is not the norm for the city at large, where separations by race and economic class are stark – and they carry a significant impact. Say it with me: we are segregated. It’s an actual thing that’s happening. The top half of the image below, from a 1980s newspaper article, shows the way that majority-black neighborhoods were concentrated in distinct sections of Atlanta at the start of that decade. The bottom half matches those sections with residents who seldom received mortgages from banks or savings and loans from 1981-86. High quality mortgages were reserved for residents of the majority-white neighborhoods.When you look at this division of populations in Atlanta from many years ago (along with the discrimination in home loans), you might shrug it off with a sigh and think “well, that’s the way things were back then, during a period that was not that far removed from the segregation era.” That was then, but this is now, right? Maybe not. Here are some maps from an Atlanta Regional Commission report that show how sharply divided the geography of the city has been within the past few years. The geography of race and poverty match up in a clearly visible way.While it’s true that some level of geographic segregation is found in every U.S. city, it would be wrong to say that Atlanta’s divide is average. We’ve got it bad. Using a statistical measure called a “diversity index,” with data from a Brown University study of census tracts, this recent study finds the City of Atlanta to be the second-most racially segregated city in the U.S. And though geographic segregation isn’t mentioned in the report, one can’t help but assume that it plays a part in the fact that a recent Brookings study found that Atlanta has the biggest gap between rich and poor people in the country. Racial division and economic inequality are both startlingly high in Atlanta.The negative effects of this division are undeniableSo what’s wrong with this picture? Is there any real down side to having these spatially divided communities in Atlanta? Let’s look at some of the negative effects of segregation by race and class. First off, there’s the psychological effect. An excellent piece in the Washington Post titled “Rich people, surrounded by other rich people, think the U.S. is richer than it really is“ explores the ways in which these physical separations can trick residents of solidly-affluent communities into thinking their culture is more prevalent than it is. According to the article, a report published in a psychology journal found that people living in those bubbles of affluence have a skewed view of the existence of poverty in their own cities, and it gives them a diminished opinion of public programs for the poor. It’s easy to imagine why they might make this mistake: If you look around you and see few poor people — on the street, in your child’s classroom, at the grocery store — you may think poverty is pretty rare.Then there’s the economic-ladder effect. A recent piece in Creative Loafing reported that “an estimated 80 percent of black children in Atlanta live in high-poverty neighborhoods…versus 43 percent of Latino kids and only 6 percent of white ones.” It’s no wonder then that a 2013 study found that a child raised in poverty in metro Atlanta has “only a 4 percent chance of making it to the top of the income scale, worse than any other major American metro area.”In addition to hurting their ability to rise in economic class, kids experience a string of other negative impacts when growing up in communities of poverty. Someone in Atlanta who thinks about and works with this reality is Bee Nguyen. The founder of a local nonprofit that works with underserved teen girls, she’s put together a series of forums titled What We Talk About When We Talk About Race that explore relations between races. She knows that our spatial separations play a part in inequality.Referring to the east-west interstate that has historically served as a physical barrier between black and white Atlanta, Nguyen recently told me that “There’s a great education disparity between north of I-20 and south of I-20.” She says that the negative side of geographic segregation has an educational component. “When you have failing schools, the neighborhood itself is not thriving. In conjunction with the schools you have food deserts a higher crime rate and lower access to health care.”Finally, while segregation is hurting Atlanta’s kids, it could also end up hurting our budgets, by making the entire region feel a pinch when it comes to federal support. This year, the Obama Administration announced changes in the way federal housing money will be distributed. Metropolitan areas will have to measure segregation and move toward solutions in order to get the money. How did we get here? Will things ever change?To gain a better understanding of the source of our geographic divide, I turned to Race and the Shaping of Twentieth-Century Atlanta by Ronald Bayor. It’s a fascinating read and I highly recommend it. The book is far-ranging, but the things that interested me most were details of government-enforced segregation through zoning, and discriminatory housing practices that made it difficult or impossible for many blacks to find quality mortgages – while at the same time maintaining the dominance of white affluence in some neighborhoods. With fifteen years between today and the book’s 2000 publication, I reached out to the author to get a few thoughts on changes in Atlanta since then and also on the way these issues have been framed in recent years (income inequality, affordable housing, and gentrification are currently hot topics in both the national media and in local neighborhood meetings).Here are Ron Bayor’s responses to my questions:————-In the last couple of years, studies have found Atlanta to have very low economic mobility and very high income inequality. It’s a troubling mix. While geography can’t be blamed for both of those problems, do you think that it’s possible that the geographic segregation in Atlanta along lines of race and class has contributed to this lingering (and by some measures, worsening) economic divide? BAYOR: “There is little doubt that class, now more than race, affects Atlanta’s economic problems. The jobs are still found in the suburbs, and the inability for poor people in the inner city, without cars or access to mass transit, to get to those jobs remains a long-term issue. “Rather than investing in an expansion of MARTA or some other form of mass transit, the money is going to business-oriented spending: for example, sports stadiums, that do little for the economic growth of the neighborhoods they are in. I think particularly of the new Falcons stadium.”The subject of housing segregation has been getting a lot of attention recently, both politically and in the media. There’s a growing focus on the goal of promoting racially integrated neighborhoods. Given Atlanta’s unique history of housing practices and its own fight for racial equality, do you think that the city is in a better or worse position when it comes to making progress with better integrating neighborhoods?BAYOR: “There definitely is progress in integrating neighborhoods but not to the level expected when Atlanta moved away from legal segregation. The city’s neighborhoods and schools remain largely segregated. Some of this segregation is due to bank mortgage policies and to real estate salespeople directing whites and blacks to different areas. “On the plus side is the movement of middle class blacks into market rate housing in the city where they live with middle class whites. On the negative side is the suburban segregation as in south Dekalb, the continuation of racially and economically segregated areas in the city, and the lack of government attention to those neighborhoods both economically and politically. “This situation is not unique to Atlanta and is evident in many cities north and south. The failure of Atlanta’s government to improve economically English Avenue and Vine City in general over many administrations is an example of neglect that perpetuates economic and racial segregation.”————-With this issue, the home of Martin Luther King, Jr. should lead, not lagThe discrimination that informed Atlanta’s current geographic divide was both intentional and multifaceted. The solutions that remedy the lingering effects of this divide will likewise need to be intentional and multifaceted. The issue is incredibly complex and can be painful to talk about. But in a city with a rich history of protest against discrimination and segregation, I think it’s right that we should be able to talk about it.Surely the home of Martin Luther King, Jr. shouldn’t be a leader in segregation and its ills. Wouldn’t it be more appropriate for Atlantans to be national leaders when it comes to addressing this difficult topic with compassion and with wisdom?One place to start might be a recognition of those times when we come together in a diverse group. Riding MARTA during the week day commute; shopping at Your Dekalb Farmer’s Market, the Curb Market; attending sports events – these are examples of places where we can be in the company of Atlanta’s full range of demographic communities.And while recognizing the diversity in those places and experiences, also question the things that set us apart from each other as residents in our less diverse neighborhoods. Is it “good schools”? (That’s a tricky issue that often divides us along class lines, as school rankings are often a reflection of levels of affluence.) Is it home values? Perceived safety concerns? An effort to gain political clout for a specific community? Question all of these things, Atlanta, and talk about our segregation with a clear knowledge of current conditions, a concern for the future, and a recognition of the past. EDITED TO ADD: For some info on the way that the divided geography of class and race in Atlanta affects public health, see this recent post of mine.
How Can I Be an Eco-Urbanist in the Land of Sprawl? Two Reasons: Change and Inspiration
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7 Last Things #3: a few final thoughts about Atlanta as I retire the ATL Urbanist blog after 5 and a half years. My name is Darin Givens and I’m an eco-urbanist. Everything I’ve written on this blog for the past five and a half years has been informed by my devotion to the idea that we need to make our urban places – our “built environments” – as compact as possible in order to spare room for natural ecosystems, or unbuilt environments.This is a *tough* concept to talk about. I’ve gotten some blank stares when I bring it up. On this third-to-last post on my Tumblr blog, I’m going to take a stab at explaining what it means and I’ll also explore the challenges of being an eco-urbanist in Atlanta, a region known for its low-density urban sprawl. The ecosystems of the Georgia Piedmont, the natural area on top of which Atlanta sits, have suffered greatly from urban sprawl. Nature needs space and connectivity – so it’s a problem when urbanized areas become spread out in a zig-zag form, like a net. Imagine the thick cords of that net being the roads and buildings of metro Atlanta, and only little pockets of disconnected nature are able to poke through the holes. We’re fragmenting nature and that hurts biodiversity. [“Urban sprawl, west Atlanta metro area, Douglas County, Georgia,” photo by Flickr user by Alan Cressler]Containing Atlanta’s urban explosion Is this kind of sprawl inevitable in Atlanta? There are people who claim that it is, chiefly because we have no barrier to contain it like other cities do. Consider Boulder, Colorado. It has a physical barrier – a massive mountain range – that prevents it from spreading out in all directions. In Atlanta we have no coastline, no mountains to provide a barrier to prevent an outward explosion of urbanization. That makes us more like Austin, Texas.But even though Austin also lacks a coast or a mountain range, it doesn’t sprawl outward like Atlanta does. Why? Largely because of planning. They’ve focused on preventing it there since the 1990s. [Image source]I don’t accept the “no natural barrier” argument for Atlanta’s sprawl. Certainly the lack of barriers provides a challenge, but it shouldn’t serve as an excuse for harmful practices. We don’t need mountains or coastline. We can use a combination of respect for nature and good urban planning to guide development in a more sustainable direction. If there’s a single phrase that sums up eco-urbanism, it’s: “if you love nature, live as far away from it as possible.” Of course we do absolutely need greenery and trees and parks in our cities to make them livable and attractive. Just don’t mistake those fragmented pieces of nature for something they are not: healthy ecosystems with complete habitats for a full diversity of native plants and animals.Why do I stay in Atlanta?So why am I here? Why do I stay in Atlanta instead of moving to NYC or some other place where the goodness of compact cities is already understood on a wide scale?There are two reasons: change and inspiration. This place is always changing, and I’m constantly inspired by the good people here who are dedicated to making sure that this change takes a positive direction. Now here’s the thing about change – it’s messy. There’s good and bad. But the key takeaway is that the Atlanta region isn’t static, so there’s a chance to take the challenges born from that “bad” change and turn them into opportunities for improving the region. Messy changes = interesting opportunitiesFor example, consider the major demographic shift happening in our suburbs, where poverty has grown by leaps and bounds. [Image source]From 2000-2011, poverty grew in the Atlanta suburbs by 159 percent; a much higher rate of growth than what was seen in the city. This has resulted in a situation where people who can’t afford a working automobile are increasingly living in car-centric places that were built for middle class residents – ones who had little trouble buying cars and keeping them in working order. At first this seems like the type of change that is irredeemably negative. But consider this: a boom in suburban residents who need alternative transportation options could result in greater political will for transit expansion, bike paths, and improved sidewalk coverage in places that have lacked those things.Population growth in general can be a messy type of change. The Atlanta region is expected to house 8 million people by 2040, up from the current 5.5 million count. This growth is inevitable in a world that is increasingly more populous and that is seeing a constant shift toward urban areas, and away from rural ones. But here again, the pressure of accommodating all these new people could prove to be a driving force in adopting more sustainable new developments – ones that fill in the gaps of already-urbanized areas rather than continuing to expand our footprint outward. Atlantans who inspireThat’s where my second source of hope comes in: the inspired ideas of this generation of Atlantans. These aforementioned challenges – and many more – can be met by engaged citizens who want this to be a place that’s easier to walk and bike in, who want better transit, and greater equability in economic opportunities. From my experience, this generation seems to be understanding that tweaks to the structural form of the city can play a big part in meeting these challenges.From popular happenings like Streets Alive to events organized by the local chapter of Congress for New Urbanism and the Center for Civic Innovation, the outlets for getting together, getting involved, reaching out and affecting policy are growing every year. Here are a couple of examples of the way that inspired ideas and positive change can end up creating good urbanism in Atlanta:1.) 50 percent of new properties developed in the region from 2009-2014 happened in walkable urban places. This includes developments including those near MARTA stations and ones near the Beltline, like Ponce City Market (pictured below, with extra cool points for reusing an old building). It’s a promising trend for good urbanism in general, and it’s an environmentally sound type of growth, because apartments, offices and stores are getting built within the existing urban footprint rather than over undeveloped land on the fringes.
2.) Positive transportation changes have happened as well. Bike commuting rose 400 percent in the first decade of this century in Atlanta. MARTA use is rising. These are positive trends that will continue to produce fewer daily car trips per household and hopefully a reduced need for land-hogging car infrastructure over time.With all the changes and inspired ideas in Atlanta, I’d say cautiously that we’re basically winning when it comes to growing in a better form. But there’s a big caveat to that: there’s no plan in most places in the region for preventing new sprawl from happening. News stories come out from time to time heralding the end of doldrums in the construction industry thanks to a new subdivision getting built in the exurbs. Convincing leaders of the benefits of good urbanism should be an ongoing effort. Another big caveat: find someone who lives in the region’s existing car-centric sprawl – who can’t afford a functioning car – and that person will probably not agree that we’re “winning.” For the sake of both safety and class equity, retrofitting sprawl for further infill and for walkable infrastructure is something that local governments across the region need to address. But isn’t sprawl part of Atlanta’s identity?Can Atlanta achieve widespread buy-in on the benefits of better built environments? Or do we just throw our hands up and accept the news headlines that tell us Atlanta is the sprawl king of the U.S. and allow that to be a key part of our regional identity? I say “no!” Reject that identity. These sprawled-out, car-centric environments have become a social justice issue and an environmental justice issue. This is, in essence, our New Orleans flood. It’s our Detroit economic devastation. And just as those places are now defined by the way they are overcoming those hurdles, Atlanta can be the place that overcomes sprawl damage. This is the generation that can do it. So let’s embrace that new identity and own the issue, for the sake of creating a healthier society and a healthier environment. Sweetwater Creek State Park
Atlanta: Don’t Accept Drive-To Urbanism! Connect Great Communities With Great Streets
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7 Last Things: #4. A few final thoughts on Atlanta as I retire the ATL Urbanist blog. The Atlanta region is famous for its car-centric sprawl, which separates houses and destinations from each other – via distance and street configuration – in a way that demands car trips. We often think of this type of built environment as being exclusive to the outer suburbs, but that isn’t true. When it comes to mobility options there’s good and bad to be found in both the burbs and the city. Just as there are wonderfully walkable places in the outskirts of the region (check out downtown Woodstock), elements of car-dependency can can end up marring even our best intown efforts at walkable urban development. A mixed-use, compact place like Atlantic Station (below) can be a pleasure to walk through once you’re inside. But approaching it on foot or bike from another neighborhood is a challenge – and the streets themselves are at fault.Writer James Russell noticed this phenomenon, which I call ‘drive-to urbanism’, when visiting Atlanta recently. After checking out the string of mixed-use density around the White Provisions complex on Howell Mill Road, he wrote a post that ends up being overly harsh, but that has good insights nonetheless: “Sprawling Atlanta Tries to Be a City”:“There
are sidewalk fragments along Howell Mill Road, but you wouldn’t call it
walkable. The area itself is isolated from the rest of the city, as so
many neighborhoods are, by highway and other infrastructure corridors.”
The affordability factor
Those challenges for pedestrian and cycling mobility on roads like this make for a situation where builders likely expect that people will drive to communities – even mixed-use, compact ones – and understandably provide a lot of parking. But all that parking raises the cost of rents, exacerbating what is already a growing affordability problem intown. A study shows that the average dollar amount that a parking space adds to housing costs is $225 per month, but keep in mind that this number falls
in the middle a a really wide range of values. In a place with really
high land values and construction costs – such as Midtown Atlanta for
instance – this monthly costs would be much higher.So there’s a lot to be gained from building better connections to our new communities. Walkability and affordability can both be improved by making our streets more attractive for trips outside of a car. To get some insight on what the city can do to address this need, I spoke with Tim Keane, Atlanta’s head of planning. ——–Interview with Tim Keane, Commissioner of Planning, City of AtlantaHow can the city address the problem of what I call “drive-to urbanism,” where you have little pockets of walkable density that aren’t connected to each other or to the rest of the city by any means – at least not in a comfortable and safe way – other than car?The step that will address the issue you’re raising is a complete rethinking of the streets. Not in a small way but in a big way. Not, “should we repair the sidewalk and put in the ADA ramp,” but to utterly think of the right of way as a different thing.The streets in Atlanta, with very few exceptions, are completely maxed out for the car. We’ve scraped out every bit of the right of way, over many years, for cars. And for cyclists and pedestrians it’s a bit unnerving. That’s something we’re really going to need to face over the next few years, having to carve out space from our streets – from the cars and for the others.The quality of life in our city, going forward, is completely dependent on the way we can remake our streets for something other than cars – for walking, for cycling. Whereas before we thought the only way to get our quality of life higher was to get the congestion down and get the cars through the intersection faster, now it’s the opposite of that. And not in the suburbs, where you’ll probably want to still eke out every bit of space for cars; but in the city.The city can’t be a better suburb than the suburbs. All we can do is be a better city. We’ve got that market. We’re the city. Well, what does it mean to be a better city? What it means is that you can walk and ride your bike and get on a bus or a train for some things. Let’s take Marietta Street and Howell Mill Road. Those streets could be remade into streets where you’d love to ride your bike or go for a walk.And this includes people who drive everywhere and never get out of their car. We all share this. This is not an us versus them thing. You might drive to every single thing you do. You might drive two blocks to the drug store.The issue, though, is that your trip two blocks to the drug store is going to get more difficult whether we remake the streets for bikes and peds and transit or not. As a matter of fact you might argue that it’ll get even worse if we don’t because not only you – who wants to drive two blocks to the drug store – but everybody else who’d rather walk or bike has to drive. It’s as simple as that.Do you think that’s something that has to be sold to Atlantans as far as winning over hearts and minds on this issue?Oh my gosh, it’s a huge job. I mean it’s just been proven so many times. This is not something we made up.And what we’re really talking about is you’ve got in places like West Midtown or in lots of places like Ponce City Market where things are getting denser – but what about the urbanism? That means the streets. Yeah, we’re getting denser, but is it becoming an urban place?I would argue that the private sector in many cases is doing a fantastic job. If you look at Atlanta compared to other places just in the south – because in every city people are building stuff like this to some degree – but if you compare Atlanta to what’s going on in Charlotte or Raleigh or other fast growing areas, the quality of the private sector [here] is high, comparatively. Everybody’s trying to innovate architecturally.The issue is the public side of it – the public realm and coming to grips with that kind of remaking. I mean, you’ve got the private realm remaking former industrial properties and commercial properties, remaking them into denser, more urban style forms of living. But what about the public realm?And by “public realm,” you’re mainly talking about the right of way of streets?I’m mainly talking about streets. The reality is that streets are the most prevalent and significant public spaces we have. The city is pursuing the remaking of Martin Luther King Boulevard on the west side. And that should become a great public space.And when it comes to these things I’m not necessarily talking about big streetscape projects where you’re really fancying the street up. That’s not the point. It’s not to be tricky about the streets. It’s to be meaningful about how you allocate space on our streets for everyone. And I mean the cars, the pedestrians, the cyclists, the transit vehicles. Inevitably, what that means, is that the pure right of way that has been devoted to just cars goes down. Perhaps significantly.Chicago has done a great job on some of their streets in downtown. They are carving out space for bikes and transit for this very reason: “We can’t beat the suburbs of Chicago on driving but we [meaning downtown Chicago] can beat them on everything other than driving.” It’s an economic development issue for them. They’ve invested in their bike infrastructure so that jobs would come there.We’ve gotta be really aggressive about bikes because people who are moving to cities, they expect to either not own a car or to not use it that much.
Atlanta: Fix the Streetcar and Auburn Avenue; There’s More Riding on This Than Passengers
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One of the major tests for Atlanta’s streetcar line is whether or not it can revive long-troubled Auburn Avenue. Doing so would help to fulfill the transit route’s goals, as stated in the application for the federal TIGER grant money that funded half of the construction.If you ask the city, you’ll hear that all is well – that the streetcar has produced hundreds of millions of dollars in investment. From the City of Atlanta website:“If you want to get a look at revitalization in the making, hop on the new Atlanta Street Car. At every stop along the 2.7 mile route, you will see how over $300 million in development has infused new life in Atlanta’s historic neighborhoods.”But on the ground, particularly on parts of Auburn Avenue, it can be hard to see changes. Despite being the location of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center and birth home and having had a new streetcar track built into it, Auburn looks as blighted as it has since the 1970s in many spots (See this AP piece from a couple of years ago for a good history of the street’s struggles).Atlanta, please don’t mess up this opportunity to revitalize Auburn Avenue and turn it into the grand city street that it should be. We’ve been mourning the sad decline of Sweet Auburn for decades, with only limited improvements to show for our efforts. This 1987 piece in the Chicago Tribune about the need for a revival in the area could have been written today.Realizing Auburn’s potential and unding shameful stagnationThe potential for greatness on Auburn Avenue is undeniable. As the birthplace of Martin Luther King Jr., and as the place where black business owners achieved success even in the face of segregation, it has major connections to the history of the city. It has old commercial buildings and churches, providing the kind of human-scale authenticity that makes a city feel like a city. It connects Downtown to eastern neighborhoods like Old Fourth Ward and also to the Beltline.Auburn has a chance to be the east-west version of what Peachtree Street is as a north-south route: a showplace for urban achievement in the city. And yes, any new growth on the street will have to be sensitive to history and to current structures; but we should absolutely not allow the need for sensitivity to serve as a rationaization for inertia. The time for stagnation is over.That this stagnation and decline is what people see while visiting the King Memorial area, that’s something we should be ashamed of as a city. Rebecca Burns wrote a piece for Atlanta Magazine titled Atlanta’s neglect of the Sweet Auburn district is a civic shame that addresses this issue well. Here’s a quote:…image-focused Atlanta should preserve [Sweet Auburn] for the pragmatic reason Atlanta has done so many other things: the way it makes us look to the rest of the world. When those tourists who visit the King crypt and historic Ebenezer walk a few blocks west, they will see that Atlanta is treating this corner of town with neglect that is far too close to the attitudes of a century ago.
For a look at the neglect, I’ve created a separate Tumblr blog that features photos of properties on Auburn Avenue, beside the streetcar tracks, that are disused. Parking lots, empty lots, abandoned buildings – all of the things that prevent the streetcar from being as successful as it should be as street-rail transit.Residential growth (or lack thereof)While modern streetcar lines in other cities have attracted a lot of new residential development, this hasn’t been the case in Atlanta – a big disappointment, since new residents could be a huge benefit for Downtown. It’s been over five years since federal TIGER funding and a local matching fund were announced for the Atlanta Streetcar. Total amount of new non-student residential housing units delivered within two blocks of the route since then: two. Not two buildings…two apartments. Those belong to the Atlanta Daily World Building.At the bottom of that building, below the two apartments, are two stores. One is an Arden’s Garden juice shop, and the other is Condesa Coffee. To get some perspective on the streetcar from the point of view of a business operator on the route, I spoke with Octavian Stan, co owner of Condesa. —————–Interview with Octavian Stan, owner of Condesa Coffee on Auburn Avenue:“I came here in 1995 from Romania. Coming from a place where you have a walkable lifestyle – I was really frustrated because you couldn’t walk anywhere.”This was in the Georgia Tech area?“Yes, Midtown. Which is now the most walkable and pedestrian friendly region.“The reason I think that we’re still not there yet [in terms of good urbanism] is because you can walk and it’s possible to live without a car, but it’s still not a complete experience. And this is the biggest problem: most people still drive from different places and park there, and they’ll walk around a little like it’s some sort of theme attraction.“With the streetcar, I don’t think people get it. I have the privilege to be someone who gets it because I lived in Bucharest [where Stan grew up]. We had streetcars going everywhere. We had buses, trolley buses, subway; we had everything.“When I was a child, most people had a car as a family but you mostly would keep it in the garage because you don’t drive it in the city. You use it like it should be used – to go to the mountains or something like that. In the city you just take transit and walk. I didn’t have a driver’s license when I came here.“That’s why I think with the streetcar a lot of people don’t get it. I talk to a lot of people, even the ones who are progressive and who are pro-transit, and they’re still like, “why are we building this streetcar when we could be investing these funds into extending MARTA into the suburbs?””Do you sense that there’s a culture of change since you’ve been in Atlanta; that there’s more of an acceptance of the benefits of walkable places?“I think that people, if you explain to them what the streetcar is about… if you’re eloquent and kind of show them what the streetcar is meant to do – instead of what they think it should do – a lot of people understand; because they know that they want the walkable urban lifestyle, but they initially don’t understand what a streetcar can do for that. “This is one of the things that government should do because I think that even they don’t get it.”You think the City of Atlanta government lacks an understanding of what the streetcar can do?“I start to think this. People who are against the streetcar see it as a boondoggle. The people who build it see it as another attraction. They see it like the Ferris wheel. Like the streetcar is just supposed to get people from Centennial Park to the MLK memorial and then back without even stopping on the way.“People ask how many people we are getting from the streetcar? None! Because they are so scared to even get off the streetcar in between. They don’t even see what’s around them.”The stop closest to you is the one at Piedmont and Auburn. You don’t see people getting off there…“And getting to my shop? No.”You think that could happen, though?“I want this to happen. I opened that shop with the hope that this would happen. But I think that as long as the city government does not get it, they won’t be able to educate the general population, who will continue to see it as something other that what it should be. They need to get a campaign for educating people on what the streetcar is about.“If you don’t the general population on board, then you’re not going to get developers to understand. You build a streetcar; you’re supposed to build streetcar-friendly development around it.Do you think that empty properties like the Atlanta Life Building are hurting the existing businesses like yours on the streetcar route?“It’s not inviting to get off the streetcar and walk [around the empty properties]. There’s just a perception because of the way they look blighted that it’s scary. I can see people on the streetcar with a little bit of a petrified smile.“But there is some good stuff happening. There’s the 200 Edgewood apartment project [ed.: this is a new student housing development]. I really respect what GSU is doing with basically keeping downtown alive, but we need more than students. We need to get other kinds of residents here. That’s what downtown’s supposed to be. It’s supposed to be a 24/7 type of neighborhood. Instead it’s a 9-5, Monday through Friday, when students are in session kind of place.” Photo of Octavian Stan outside Condesa during Parking Day, 2015.
Atlanta: See the Past, Present and Future
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I’m
counting down a few final things I want to say to the city via this
Tumblr blog,
following my five-year deep dive into the subject of urbanism while
living in Downtown Atlanta with my family. I’m retiring this blog at the
end of October, 2015 and converting it to an archive of my observations
during these years.The streets of our city are more than
what we see in the present moment and what we know of them from
individual experiences. They have a past that’s as rich and varied as
the number of people who’ve known them as homes or workplaces or
hangouts. As
products of everything that’s happened before and that’s currently
developing in the region, each street and each building tells a story
about our local culture. And collectively they work to tell a larger
story about Atlanta; one that we can move forward in a promising
direction if we write it with care.Old buildings reused: markers of a creative economy This
story of the city needs to have a mix of old and new to be complete.
It’s easy to view shiny new buildings as a sign of new investment, and
of course they are. But massive investments get made in restoration of
old structures, and the return is significant, on an environmental, cultural and economic level. As we’ve seen from the Ponce City Market
project and more, the act of re-imagining an old structure and giving
new meaning and use to it can spur as much innovation as any new
building, while also bringing in big investments.An article published just this week contains some great arguments for the importance of
reusing old structures instead of demolishing
them for new construction, emphasizing the positive
economic impact of reuse and of retaining a mix of building types: “…Neighborhoods containing a mix of
older, smaller buildings of diverse age support greater levels of
economic and social activity than areas dominated by newer, larger
buildings…Retaining blocks of older, smaller, mixed-vintage
buildings can help cities achieve sustainable development goals and
foster great neighborhoods.“To
illustrate the connections we have to the past in Downtown Atlanta through our “mixed-vintage
buildings,” here’s a photo of Peachtree Street that includes the years buildings were completed. It’s a mix of time periods that reflects the various economic booms in the city that produced this construction. The ongoing investment in these buildings bears fertile ground for creative adaptation. The Candler Building (1906) is being converted next year to either hotel or residential; the Flatiron Building (1897) is undergoing major renovation to house new offices including several floors for a Microsoft innovation center; the Equitable Building (1968) recently underwent a multimillion-dollar renovation to keep it competitive with the amenities of newer offices. Urban “mindscape” as antidote to the static city I think that sometimes we live in a city for a while and think of the built environment that exists as being set in stone – static. It’s helpful to keep in mind the potential Atlanta has as a springboard for good ideas and as a canvas for implementing them. This concept of resisting the static view and instead realizing the full continuum of the urban place is similar to what one writer has termed an ”urban mindscape.“ Instead of looking around and seeing only what the city is today, as represented in a current streetscape for instance, a mindscape view can allow you to see Atlanta in a way that links its past, present and future in a continuous flow, with its ever-changing cultural and physical environment apparent. Doing so can establish a good foundation civic innovation; because when the present-day city is viewed as a static entity, tied down to decisions and events from the past, that baggage often becomes a stumbling block to innovation (I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard or read a phrase similar to “that can’t happen here, Atlantans won’t accept it” or “Atlanta is a car town, that idea can’t work here”). But when the city’s culture and structure are understood as a constant flow, we can be more optimistic about creativity and change. As an example, let’s look at one streetscape – a single westward vista of Alabama Street at its intersection with Central Avenue. We’ll take in the past and present while also envisioning a future that serves as an improvement to the present while also fitting in with the flow of the urban environment that began in the past. The top photo is of the ground level. The bottom two show the new surface level, one story in the air, thanks to a series of viaducts that now exists. In the middle – the current day view – you can see the sad remains of the failed mall of Underground Atlanta. Vacant spaces and out-of-date facades tell a story of economic decline for the development. The bottom photo is a rendering from a potential redevelopment. It’s possible to walk through here today and see not only the decline that’s overtaken the place, but also see what used to be here and what could come. The full flow of the street through time – a connection between periods of vibrancy that span centuries.Planning Atlanta archiveUnderstanding planning mistakes from the past (such as the failed mall of Underground Atlanta) can help inform the many opportunities for redevelopment and reuse the city has. Turner Field, Medical Arts Building, Pullman Yards, the old Atlanta Constitution Building, Adair School, Ft. McPherson, the old Georgia Farmer’s Market…these are all opportunities to grow into vacant spaces in a smart way. Plans for the built environment are telling; they reflect the way we view the city and its culture. For more info about the importance of understanding these plans, I turned to Joe Hurley at the Georgia State University library to talk about their incredible Planning Atlanta website. It’s a digital archive of 130 (and growing) planning maps of Atlanta from the 1930s-1990s. And there’s a Google Maps overlay so you can view changes over time. Interview with Joe HurleyHow can Atlanta neighborhoods use these maps and documents in the Planning Atlanta website to make their communities better?“The built environment of Atlanta, like most American cities, has suffered from 70 years of local, state, and federal policies that have strongly favored decentralization and automobile focused infrastructure projects.
“As residents seek to make their communities better by focusing on built environment improvements such as better pedestrian infrastructure, Planning Atlanta can help inform residents and city council members of the relatively dense urban environment that once existed before our highways cut through neighborhoods and Portman skyscrapers and parking decks consumed the city’s core.
"While there are many ways residents can use the digital collection, one important goal is to allow them to see how their neighborhoods have changed over time. By using the maps, documents, oral histories, and other material to gain a deeper understanding of their neighborhood’s past built and social environment, residents can learn from our city’s urban infrastructure failures and successes.
"Ultimately, one of the best ways for residents to make their communities better is to be well informed and to be actively involved with their neighborhood organization. My hope is that Planning Atlanta will help to inform the public about how past city planning activities have reshaped the city and, hopefully will lead residents to demand better urban infrastructure from city leaders. Have you gotten any feedback from neighborhood organizations about the project and it’s use?
"We’ve received feedback from residents and neighborhood organizations that use the collection, such as positive feedback from the Westside Communities Alliance, which is using the collection to document Vine City’s past.
"One of the most memorable emails was from a Summerhill resident who wrote to comment on one of my GSU Library blog posts about land use change in the Turner Field area. This resident explained that the material in the collection has a “meaningful impact on the community” and that it “answers questions I know are prevalent in my community.”
The Cafe Table Dichotomy in Atlanta
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Above is a photo of Broad Street, just outside of the building where we live in Downtown Atlanta. Most every weekday afternoon office workers, GSU students and even a residents like me all descend on the restaurants here. Many people have their lunch on the inviting sidewalk cafe tables al fresco style. This is the kind of street-level activity you can find in many cities wherever there are buildings that predate cars (the ones in the background above date to the 1880s). Having these tables and people and stores all together serves as a type of signifier of urban vibrancy. You look at this and think, “yep, this is what a city is supposed to look like.” It looks alive.Now contrast what’s happening on Broad Street with the scene below. This is a photo I took recently on Howell Mill Road in northwest Atlanta. These are the cafe tables outside of a Starbucks. The trouble started when I tried to get to the store from the main road; there was no direct sidewalk into retail area, so I had to either walk through landscaping or walk in on the same blacktop asphalt that cars were zooming in on (I chose the landscaping). The interior of the Starbucks was well designed and inviting – quite a contrast from the outside. A few people were having coffee al fresco on the sidewalk patio, but they were sharing space with a surface parking lot. I thought to myself, “oh wow, european style cafe seating! It looks just like Paris, if you replaced 80 percent of Paris with a parking lot.” You can find cafe table like these, that front vast expanses of parking, all throughout intown Atlanta. I’ve never understood the appeal. Aesthetically, this just feels ridiculous to me. But more importantly, it’s an interesting reflection of the way society has acclimated to car-centric places. Many of us feel perfectly comfortable with the concept of paying for food and drink while sitting on a small strip of concrete left for human activity, right beside a vast expanse of asphalt devoted to car storage. It’s a reversal of the situation on Broad Street where the very wide sidewalks take up a greater space than what’s left for a single lane of moving traffic for cars, plus a few curbside parking spaces. But the biggest difference between these two places is that people in Downtown Atlanta are able to walk to Broad Street from their offices, classrooms and homes. When the chance for alternative forms of mobility exist, you have the potential for creating these lively urban spaces that bring many different kinds of people together, face to face, in the sunlight and under trees. It’s an experience that’s sorely lacking in car-centric places.
The Bike Lane Battleground in Atlanta
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“Four-foot bike lanes are the bare minimum, and many U.S. cities are no longer building them. A thin white line on a busy roadway will help better organize traffic for everyone, but it won’t get the estimated 60 percent of population who are interested in biking but concerned about safety on a bike. We need safe, protected, connected bikeways to make biking a real option for most people.” - ATL Bicycle Coalition Leader Responds to Anti-Bike Outcry | Curbed AtlantaThe bike lane battleground in AtlantaWhat a great quote that is, above – it comes from Rebecca Serna, president of the Atlanta Bicycle Coalition. She’s commenting on the ongoing controversy over the effort to put bike lanes on Peachtree Road in Atlanta’s northern Buckhead neighborhood, as well as the general backlash over the idea of removing car lanes and putting in bike lanes.These days in Atlanta, bike lanes are part of a local culture war, with opponents demonizing “road diets” that allow new lanes for cyclists because they take away car capacity; instead of making it safer to cycle via a little diet for drivers, it seems like these people would prefer to simply starve cyclists. A writer for the AJC recently went on a tirade against the proposal to put in a bike lane on Peachtree Road while removing some car lane. I won’t even bother quoting from it. The nadir was when he describes the way he drove alongside cyclists with his car window down and shouting at them to try and get their opinion. Real nice. In the Curbed Atlanta piece, Serna refers to the need for more than a thin white line on a busy roadway. This is so true – when it comes to cycling safety, context matters. The faster the cars are moving and the more cars there are around you, the more protection you need from them as a cyclist. And though the safety of the current number of Atlanta cyclists is important, we also need to focus (as Serna notes) on growth. There has been a rise in the number of people commuting by bike in Atlanta in recent years, but there’s room for a lot more of a rise. Clear
data shows a direct relationship between protected lanes and
significant growth in cycling traffic. We certainly can’t expect that growth to happen when we produce badly designed bike infrastructure like what can be seen on Atlanta’s Highland Avenue, below. On the left is a pitifully ineffective bike lane that exists as little more than a “courtesy curb” for the bravest and boldest, thanks to its lack of buffering and the high potential to get cyclists doored by parked cars. And sure enough, as I walked here on a recent night, three separate cyclists passed by on the sidewalk, refusing to consider the lane. I couldn’t blame them.
Intown Atlanta: Not as Devoted to Detached Homes as You Might Think
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This was impressive to me. A new entry in the Washington Post Wonkblog looks at housing types in the largest 40 US cities (and that’s cities proper, not metro areas), ranking them by their devotion to the detached home versus other types like duplexes, small and large apartments. And though the City of Atlanta barely squeaks into the list at all, being only the 39th most populous in the country, it actually rates pretty highly in having a diversity of housing types, with an emphasis on multifamily homes. The chart below shows that Atlanta ranks as the 9th least devoted to detached homes. Just under 40% of homes are detached. This data is based on “new 2014 American Community Survey data on the characteristics of occupied housing.”I found this surprising because when intown Atlanta is viewed by way of aerial photos, it appears that most of the land space of the city is taken up by detached homes and their yards. And many of those homes on the north, west and south sides are in a very suburban pattern. We even have straight up cul-de-sacs in the city. Here’s a shot of one in west Atlanta.Does this surprise you as well? It seems to me like we sometimes treat the City of Atlanta as being more dominated by this style of home than it really is. Perhaps that’s just me being overly sensitive as a dedicated apartment dweller. But I wonder if the concerns of people living in multifamily density are being represented well by city policies. It’s worth thinking about, because it turns out that occupied units of urban housing forms (apartments, townhomes) are the rule rather than the exception here.Photo of Glenwood Park by Flickr user peterlfrench
Two Atlantas: Separated by Race, Class, and Now Health
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A new article in City Lab covers a study that has produced a heat map of obesity in US neighborhoods. Read about it here: Where America’s Obese Live When it comes to this condition, place matters. Researchers believe that there are conditions in these neighborhoods that influence this health problem:Through spatial cluster analyses, the researchers at RTI point out that
these hot spots aren’t just random occurrences—they’re statistically
significant. In other words, there’s something happening in these
particular neighborhoods that’s fueling the high obesity rates.You can view the interactive mapping tool from the study here. Above, you can see a capture of Atlanta’s map. The neighborhoods with high percentages of obesity (in red) are clearly separated from the ones with low percentages (in blue). Notice how the spatial placement of the two extremes mirrors the Racial Dot Map’s display of black and white communities here:And it also mirrors the separation of economic classes (as defined by job type) in the city:The divided geography of class and race in Atlanta has a long history; so long that we’ve come to accept the segregation as inevitable. But consider the effects on health: we’ve got a large swatch of the city where obesity is all around, and this is a health epidemic in our country that is related to heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. Also consider the effects on economic mobility: Atlanta is dead last in the US among big cities when it comes to the chances for a child born in poverty to rise in economic class. The time has come for leaders to engage in thoughtful, sensitive conversation on the topic of this geographic separation, what factors influence it and how to undo the damage that is caused by it.I’ll have more to say on this in a few weeks. I’m working on a long-form post on the subject.EDITED TO ADD: A Washington Post piece this week addresses the link between economic class and obesity. Here’s a good quote, emphasizing they way that the benefits of the healthy eating movement are exclusive to the wealthier classes:The food divide seems to be headed in the same, disconcerting direction that wealth inequality has. “So far, the healthy eating movement has mostly changed the eating habits of wealthier Americans,” said [Tatiana Andreyeva of the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity]…The wealthy, in other words, will continue to eat better and the poor won’t. And the gap between them will only become more difficult to bridge.
What Does a Place With 8 Million People Look Like?
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According to the Atlanta Business Chronicle, new population projections call for the Atlanta region to have 8 million residents by the year 2040. Current population is 5.5 million.“The 20-county metro Atlanta region is expected to reach a population of 8 million by 2040, according to a long-range forecast the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC).”What does that 20-county region look like on a map? Below, I’ve blocked out the land area of those counties. This is where 5.5 million residents are now spread out.That’s a big chunk of north Georgia. You can see that the far western edge stretches to the Alabama line. Is that the size of land that has to be taken up my that number of people? Take a look at this image of Greater London’s footprint. This is where 8.4 million people live – a population count that’s a little more than the projection for the Atlanta Region’s in 2040.Those two maps are at the same scale. Here’s a direct comparison of the two at the same scale, in one image.Greater London obviously accommodates a large population in an area much smaller than Atlanta region, where the sprawl of the past several decades has pushed the boundaries of urban growth out in all directions with housing that takes a comparatively low-density form.This comparison between the 20-county Atlanta region and Greater London brings to mind two other popular images of Atlanta from the last few years. One shows the interchange of interstates 75 & 285 next to Florence, Italy, showing that they take up roughly the same space. Another image puts an older and smaller version of metro Atlanta’s footprint (from 1990) next to Barcelona, Spain and demonstrates how the same number of people can occupy vastly different stretches of land – which is pretty much what I’ve done above with London.I’ve seen a lot of comments online that mock these comparisons of Atlanta to european cities as being ridiculous. And it’s true that the geography, culture and history of Atlanta is very far removed from that of an old european city. But that doens’t need to translate to density as well. The history of Atlanta and its regional cities contains plenty of pre-car walkable density – we don’t need to think of strip malls, arterial roads and cul-de-sacs as the defining landscape for the region. Sprawl doesn’t have to be an innate, never ending part of our cultural identity.But more to the point, we can’t afford to think of density as un-Atlantan. I’ve heard many locals brag about their ability to withstand long drives to work or else boasting that they live in a suburb where everything they need is a 15 minute drive away. But what about the people who can’t afford a car, or who can’t afford to maintain one in good working condition, or who are unable to drive due to age or disability? Creating an environment where the mobility of those people is hindered, and where their attempts to walk to destinations are deadly – that’s nothing to be proud of.There’s been a good trend in new development taking place in walkable areas, but that’s been happening largely by way of market demands. Leaders need to ensure that all new transportation and development projects happen with an eye on sustainable, equitable mobility. The migration trend in Georgia and elsewhere toward urban regions will continue to put more and more people inside metro Atlanta’s largely car-focused built environment. This creates a mobility challenge we need to face head on by planning for new development that encourages public transit, bicycling and walking.The distance that our sprawling format has put between people and their jobs has dictated long commutes and created great distances between many homes and common destinations like grocery stores and doctors, often affecting the most vulnerable demographic segments the hardest (food deserts in Atlanta have gotten a lot of media coverage, but we also have doctor deserts – a challenge for aging Boomers). The overall health of the Atlanta region will depend on our ability to undo the damage of our car-centric built environments in the face of a growing population.
One Symptom of Driverless-Car Fever: Disinterest in Funding Public Transit
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There’s a quote in an AJC article from last week that clearly reveals a sad symptom of driverless-car fever – one that I’ve seen popping up in comments around the internet for a while. The symptom: a debilitating reluctance to fund expansion in public transit because “robot cars are on their way soon, so why bother?”Here’s a quote from the AJC piece, which focuses on booming Gwinnett County, just northeast of the City of Atlanta:“For the first time next year, Gwinnett and other metro Atlanta counties will have the option to consider a transportation-specific local option sales tax that could help pay for transit and other travel needs.”That’s right! A bill passed earlier this year allows Georgia counties to ask voters to approve up to a 1 percent sales tax that could fund transportation projects, including public transit. Will Gwinnett, which is busting at the seams with population growth while lacking MARTA service (it has its own small bus system) be seeking a tax to boost transit there? Or perhaps even join MARTA? It doesn’t seem entirely likely if the words of county chairman Charlotte Nash are representative of attitudes among all county leaders:Charlotte Nash said it is still too soon for the county to take a large step forward when it comes to public transportation…And who knows — with the advent of self-driving vehicles and services like Uber, she said, the transportation needs of Gwinnett County and the region could quickly change. People may be less interested in rail, she said, if they can relax in a private pod.Relaxing in a private pod! The American Dream. That’s a pretty incredible statement from Nash when you consider what’s happening right now in the county:Recent numbers show that Gwinnett County had the biggest jump in population of any county or city in the Atlanta Region in the past few years. A poll this year by Gwinnett’s own Chamber of Commerce shows that 63% of voters there want to see MARTA rail expanded into the county. A new survey of 4,000 people who live or work in Gwinnett showed a desire for public transportation and walkable places.I hope that self driving cars end up being the savior of transportation that many people seem to think they’ll be. Otherwise we’ll be in one a hell of a mess in a few years, because there are a lot of folks out there who have this opinion of “we don’t need to invest in public transportation, self-driving cars are just around the corner and they’ll solve all of our needs." That this opinion has worked its way into our regional leadership, affecting long-term plans for mobility and the way we shape our built environment, is concerning. Everyone in Gwinnett better all pray for super-affordable, autonomous-car awesomesauce – because that’s the only thing what will end up working in a place that’s continuing to grow its population in a ’carpet of sprawl’ fashion that is seriously lacking in walkable, connected urban centers.Oh and by the way, news today: driverless cars can be hacked by a laser pointer. Just FYI.
Wasted Potential for Walkable Growth in Chamblee, GA
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I’m not a regular Whole Paycheck shopper, but I was happy to read earlier this year
that a Whole Foods-anchored shopping center was going up in Chamblee not far from their MARTA rail station. This
is a little city with great potential for being a walkable place, much like
Decatur which also lies on the immediate outskirts of the City of Atlanta. But the newly-released renderings for the project are just sad. Take a look at this one: It’s obvious that
all the entrances to stores (including good lcoal ones like Octane Coffee) are going
to be focused inward toward a large surface parking lot. Look at the
ridiculous image of people walking into this shopping center along a
sidewalk that provides no buffer between pedestrians and cars. No one’s
going to be walking here and that’s a shame.Family Friendly Cities blogger Bradley Calvert replied to my tweet about this project with a marked-up image highlighting everything in the rendering that shows a lack of regard for the true needs of pedestrians, including curbs walls and signage that are all designed at a scale for car drivers:The Atlanta Business Chronicle has the story on the project (which includes more renderings), and points out its proximity to a transit line that seems to be seeing a lot of new development nearby: Known as Peachtree Crossing, the project is taking shape…on what’s become an active stretch of Peachtree lined by
MARTA’s Gold line. The area includes cities such as Chamblee just north
of Atlanta’s tallest office and residential towers.What a shame that the train station, with its potential for spurring walkable growth here, was not enough to convince developers to design (and local government to demand) a form that would allow for safe, comfortable entry by pedestrians and cyclists. Grocery stores, coffee shops and restaurants are the kinds of everyday urban amenities that can and should be reachable on foot and on bike just as easily as they can by car. And as I’ve noted before, I’m not making an anti-car argument with these complaints. I’m pointing out the way that convenience for cars is the dominant factor, by far, in many decisions we make about our built environment. That dominance squashed the potential we have to create a better balance in mobility, particularly in spot like this where a significant investment has been made in heavy rail transit.