Atlanta’s Big Turnaround in Walkable Development

By Brad Aaron
Jun 25, 2015

A new report that quantifies development in walkable urban places (“WalkUPs”) has good news for Atlanta.

Darin at ATL Urbanist reports:

A full 50 percent of new properties developed in the Atlanta region from 2009-2014 happened in walkable urban places, which is not only a higher amount than what’s happening in the other regions as charted here, it also shows a much bigger jump between that time period versus what was happening in 1992-2000, when the Atlanta region was really lagging behind and producing a lot of new construction in sprawling patterns

The studies are showing a shift away from car-centric development patterns that dominated development in US metros during the latter half of the 20th century.

According to the report, 73 percent of WalkUP development from 2009 to 2013 occurred in areas served by MARTA.

“[T]here’s also a trend happening in the absorption of empty office space in Atlanta’s walkable intown areas that are near transit,” writes Darin. “Just this week we have news that Coke is moving another 500 employees from suburbs to existing offices in Downtown Atlanta — this comes on top of another recent shift that saw Coke relocating 2,000 workers to the downtown locations.”

Elsewhere on the Network today: Streets.mn notes the discrepancy between riders and seats on Minneapolis Metro, and Washington Area Bicyclist Association says a pending DC Council bill would help cyclists recover damages after a crash.

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