Fresh Loaf

Mother Jones has posted an interesting chat with David Goldberg, communications director of Smart Growth America. Goldberg, a Decatur resident and former AJC editorial board member, talks with assistant editor Jen Phillips about the challenges — and opportunities — communities face as they try to become more walkable and less car-centric. He also gives a long summary on what Atlanta’s doing right after decades of doing wrong.

From the interview:

There’s some really disturbing trends here: We’re having a difficult time revitalizing places that are being abandoned, while we go out to these greenfields and build these new places, wasting a lot of money on extending infrastructure all over the place, and we’re consigning people to life in a car and now high gas prices.

So what do we do about that?

It’s worth the time to give the discussion a look if you want to know the answer. Or if you wanted a comprehensive and easy-to-read background on how smart growth concepts work.

Bookmark It

The Old Fourth Ward, which has coped with prostitutes, drug dealers and gentrification, is on tap for a facelift.

The Atlanta City Council is set to adopt a master plan this month for the historic intown neighborhood, which includes Auburn Avenue and Boulevard. It served before desegregration as the business district for black Atlantans.

But city planners also are trying to fend off a potential traffic mess and other problems that could come with the renewed interest in intown living. The Bureau of Planning predicts the neighborhood’s population will rise over the next two decades from 6,000 to 20,000 — approximately the same number of people who lived there before the Civil Rights Movement. The redevelopment vision could create more walkable streets lined with energy-efficient buildings.

To view the plan, click here. (PDF file)

(Screenshot courtesy of City of Atlanta)

Bookmark It

Decaturite over at Decatur Metro breaks the news that JLB Partners, the developers of the controversial 315 W. Ponce, have requested an “indefinite deferral” from the city and asked the development authority and planning commission to convene public meetings so various kinks and concerns about the project can be ironed out.

Decaturite posted a well-written message from Duane Truex, a neighborhood resident with a really cool name, that sums up much of the concern about the proposed mixed-use development at the doorstep of downtown Decatur. These two paragraphs really stood out to me:

We are NOT anti growth, we live in mixed use development and always have in this neighborhood around the 315 project (Ponce place, Montgomery, Fairview etc, etc…). It *is* our backyard so we want growth to be sensible, properly scaled, proper quality and to the benefit of all…as well as something that honors Decatur’s past and future. Yes we are idealists. But we are willing to work with the city and developers on a proper project.

For the record we reached out on several occasions to Hudson Hooks [ed. JLB Partners' Atlanta associate]and company. We drank together and talked and attempted to sit down in a small setting to discuss the project. My guess is that the developers were of the opinion (somehow) that it was so ‘in the bag’ they did not need to listen. Moreover they may have underestimated both the skill set extant in these neighborhoods. We are parents, tradesmen and women, artisans and professionals–engineers, architects or various flavors, scientists, producers of content, lawyers and others who can research, reason, design, problem solve, and if needed, resist.

(Screenshot courtesy of JLB Partners)

Bookmark It

Awesome news. Developers say the full-service grocer planned for the old Atlanta Dairies location will be a “mainstream” store, but not a high-end chain such as Whole Foods or Fresh Market. Regardless, if you live nearby, you’re getting a place within walking distance to buy food.

(Thanks to Paul Donsky at the AJC)

Bookmark It

Number of building permits issued in Decatur in 1995: 349

Number of building permits issued in Decatur in 2007: 822

Percent decrease in car volume at the intersection of Ponce de Leon Avenue and Church Street from 2001 to 2006: 20

Population of Decatur in 2000: 18,147

Population of Decatur in 2007: 17,914

Average household size in the U.S.: 2.58

Average household size in metro Atlanta: 2.7

Average household size in Decatur: 2.12

Source: City of Decatur 2008 Annual Report, Decatur Court Traffic Impact Analysis

Bookmark It

…Decatur’s traffic declines. That’s what Nick at DecaturMetro discovered when he perused the 38-page traffic study completed by the developers of the proposed 315 W. Ponce project in the smart-growth posterchild’s downtown (more on that project, called Decatur Court, later.)

(more…)

Bookmark It

The Brookings Institution, that lovable bunch of left-leaning think tankers up in Washington, D.C., released a report of the top 30 “walkable” cities in the United States, and our sprawling — or maybe not — hunk of paradise placed … wait for it … 14th.

While I can understand how we placed better than Detroit — did they take crime into account or something? — it’s pretty astonishing that we placed just behind New York City. The D.C. boys and gals decided to give top honors to the District. Tampa, home to one of our sister publications, placed last on this list.

How’d they come up with the list? From the article:

Christopher B. Leinberger, a real estate developer and visiting fellow at Brookings, set out to quantify the walkability trend by counting the number of “regional-serving walkable urban places” in each of the 30 biggest metropolitan areas in the country. “Regional-serving” means the place is not just a bedroom community, but has jobs, retail or cultural institutions that bring in people who don’t live there.

Leinberger, who also teaches urban planning at the University of Michigan, counted 157 such “walkable places” — including the Houston area’s Sugar Land Town Square, one of many built-from-scratch “lifestyle centers” to make the list.

And they also factored this in:

Leinberger counted only places where significant subsidies are no longer required to spur development. He predicted that many more — such as downtown Detroit and Crossroads in Kansas City, Mo. — would reach that point within the next decade.

Bookmark It