Fresh Loaf

The Atlanta Regional Commission says metro Atlanta will continue to grow, albeit at a slower pace than it enjoyed during the 1990s. Nonetheless, expect to call approximately three million more people neighbors by 2040.

In its latest monthly forecast, which is basically like Christmas for a fact-loving pagan wonk like myself, the commission’s researchers say:

slower growth in population and employment is likely to be the norm across the country, as well as in the Atlanta region. Many of the factors affecting metro Atlanta are nationwide phenomena. For example, the average family continues to shrink, including those of second and third-generation immigrants. Combine fewer births with the decrease in the number of baby boomers over the next 30 years, and it’s clear that natural attrition will play a large part in moderating the Atlanta Region’s growth.

By that time, its residents will also be a lot older and younger, too — which will mean fewer people to fill available jobs.

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After months of behind-the-scenes coordination, the Atlanta Regional Commission can finally confirm celebrated New Urbanist Andres Duany’s project for metro Atlanta.

In early February, Duany and a team of town planners from his Duany Plater-Zyberk firm will hold a nine-day series of charrettes to design five sites in the metro region aimed at retrofitting communities — a proactive move to accommodate the growing population of aging metro Atlantans.

If that sounds like a ho-hum project for a town planner commonly called the “father of New Urbanism,” think more long-term. By 2030, according to the commission, one out of five people living in metro Atlanta will be over the age of 55. And the auto-dependent, subdivision existence that is metro Atlanta doesn’t bode well for those residents in terms of housing, transportation and quality of life.

Members of Duany’s team will set up shop in the commission’s downtown headquarters, hear input from stakeholders, and assemble and present its preliminary vision for five chosen sites — Toco Hills in DeKalb County, the Grant Park area along the Beltline, Mableton, Fayetteville and Conyers. Think of the process as Jackson Pollock meets urban planning.

Funding for the charrettes is provided by the American Association of Retired Persons, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Kathryn Lawler, the commission’s project manager, says the initiative is a first and could have national implications for how sprawl-ravaged regions can adapt to a population that’s living longer — and deserving of the right to move about the world like its younger counterparts.

(Photo courtesy of Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company)

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The Atlanta Regional Commission is keeping mum about exactly what’ll be said, but representatives from Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company — as in Andres Duany, the man whose name is most often connected to any discussions about New Urbanism — are scheduled to address the planning organization on Wednesday at 1 p.m. about “aging.”

UPDATE: Just spoke with someone at the Atlanta Regional Commission who says that neither Andres Duany nor any of his representatives will be in attendance tomorrow. At the moment, any kind of project with the famed New Urbanist is merely in the brainstorming phase. Something may happen, something may not happen. But the chair of the commission’s Aging department will brief the board on the discussions. Sorry if we got any of the wonks out there excited. That being said, everything that follows below remains as is.

A hunch tells me it’s about how Atlanta may not be prepared to handle the large demographic shift and emergence of over-60 residents in the coming decades. According to the ARC, one out of every five metro Atlanta residents will be over the age of 60 by the year 2030.

The event is open to the public and will be held at the ARC’s offices downtown on Courtland Street at 1 p.m. If you enjoy hearing about administrative minutiae, you’ll love these meetings. And I mean that in a good way.

Speaking as someone who’s attended a lot of planning sessions and public workshops, senior citizens want to play a part in Atlanta’s next phase. They want walkable streets, sufficient transit and easy access to health care and amenities. They deserve these things as well, as do we all. I’ll attend and will report when it’s over.

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