A solution to sprawl?

Just searching for "urban sprawl" in the library article database gave me 12,354 results, but displayed the top 150. On the very top of the list was an article that jumped out at me, "A (Radical) Way to Fix Suburban Sprawl." The author of the article wrote about Tysons Corner, VA, a city with "more parking spaces than jobs or residents." The solution provided was to actually build on to the area instead of cutting down on construction. The plan is to add many more housing units surrounding a new public train system to cut down on traffic as well as bring more people closer to the area. This would, over time, create a pedestrian-friendly environment and eliminate the sprawl.

The link: http://gtsearch.library.gatech.edu/search/metasearch/record?group=001099&resultSet=006733&startRecord=1


Vincent Louis

The Other side of the Coin

A compact, high rise community as mentioned in "Prove it"

The library database is a great place to find interesting articles. When I was searching the database, I found an article that criticizes anti-sprawl arguments. In Suburban Nation, we only get one side of the argument which is the arguments against sprawl. The authors of the book did well trying to convince us about the dark side of neighborhoods development by providing examples from daily lives. However, we do not really get to see what other people think about the issue. Reading this book is like listening to only one side of the argument.

The article I want to introduce is called “Prove It.” This article challenges the credibility of the arguments from Suburban Nation. As we have read from the book, sprawl is associated with more land usage and less farm land. However, in our modern time, we can reap more products from less farmland than decades ago due to better technology, and more efficient farming techniques. This is one of the many issues from the article that raises our skeptics about the validity of the arguments from the book.




Link to the article: http://web.ebscohost.com.www.library.gatech.edu:2048/ehost/detail?vid=2&hid=113&sid=1b1927f6-b934-41c4-9faf-fa600ff505c3@replicon103&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#toc

Phumthep Bunnak

Buckhead

I visited the neighborhood of Buckhead for this evaluation. It's a really nice expensive neighborhood with a lot of older houses. It seems like a fantastic place to raise a family. Nearby, there are parks where people can go to relax or exercise. There are a lot of eat-in restaurants as opposed to mainstream fast food places. The district of Buckhead is also home to Phipps Plaza Mall and the Lenox Square Mall. Overall, it isn't very sprawlly and looks like a really beautiful place to live.

Vincent Louis

Atlantic Station, A city Within a City

Every weekends, students a Geogia Tech will be able to take the "Grocery Shuttle" to Target in Atlantic Station. The Target there has most of the things every college students need to survive. This includes pencils, notebooks, and power drinks. But besides from Target, Atlantic Station has a lot of other things to offer too. If you walk around, you will see many restaurants, and shopping places. There is also a movie theatre. I chose this neighborhood to observe because the place is easy to get to, and there are lots of stuffs to see other than the rows and rows of houses. Before I went there, I made a list which is used to define a good place to live. In the list I put in environment, interesting places, transportation, and commercial places. However, after I went there, I have to put in another criteria, living expenses. Living in a big city like Atlanta can be expensive. The lifestyle is definitly different from living in other places. Overall, I consider Atlantic Station to be a good place to live here in Atlanta. There are things you can do, as well as supermarkets to buy groceries.

for more information about Atlantic Station, visit this website
http://www.atlanticstation.com/

Phumthep Bunnak

Virginia Highland

I went to Virginia Highland on September 8th, early in the morning with Marta Bus line 45. I first took the Tech Trolley to Midtown Station, waited 10 minutes for the bus to arrive then had a 6 minutes bus journey to the intersection of Virginia and Highland Avenues, the heart of Virginia Highland neighborhood. It was a pretty easy commute from the campus, I didn’t wait much and rode a spacious bus. As far I have looked up on itsmarta.com, Virginia Highland has a pretty good bus system that connects the neighborhood to major MARTA stations and other important places in the city, which can be pretty effective if used with the schedule on MARTA website.

I have spent about 3 hours strolling around the streets of Virginia Highland, mainly through North Highland Avenue, though I`ve been to the side streets and other intersecting roads. One thing that surprised me was the narrow streets. I haven’t been to many places in Atlanta, but from where I’ve been so far, I can say that there were really wide and congested roads at the places I visited. Highland Avenue, the main road of the neighborhood is a single lane road where traffic is very low and sidewalks are wide enough for pedestrians and window-shopping. The area was totally pedestrian friendly, and the `slow down, neighborhood` signs were some measures taken by the local government to promote this. I also saw many people jogging and shopping on the sidewalks. Most people had basic necessities in their bags like groceries and beverages, and grocery stores are within walking distance, which effaces the need for a car.
While I was walking toward Virginia-Highland Intersection, I passed by John Howell Park and had a chance to observe the public spaces and parks of the area. There was a maintenance car in the park at around 8:45 am, preparing the park for the day. The park was in a perfect shape, grass was cut freshly, it smelled fresh and everything was clean in the park. I had a chance to observe the lawn of a house and it was very neat and clean, everything in order and kids were playing happily. Streets were also clean, not like streets of Toronto, Canada, but clean in Atlanta standards. I was pretty shocked to see that Virginia Highland was chosen as the first carbon free community in the USA. It is very interesting to see that such a community can exist in the USA where cars are worshipped. I then decided to add being environmentally friendly on my criteria.

As I was walking the area, the thing I liked the most was the homes and the architecture of the neighborhood. Every house had a distinct touch, but the neighborhood has its own unity in architectural style. Every house had a history, and no house was like the so called McMansion, there were some grandiose and more sumptuous homes, no house looked artificial and incongruent with the texture of the area. Speaking of architecture, most retail shops and restaurants seemed to be converted from homes and were in the same style of the neighborhood buildings. However, there were some other shops that totally ruin the charm of the neighborhood. I can say that Chevron gas station and CVS should not have been allowed to be built there. Chevron stands in the very center of Virginia-Highland intersection and overshadows the single-floor little shops with the gas pumps and the vast area it covers with parking lot, and the FOOD MART that is built in a very boring style. Moreover, CVS, with its giant parking lot and incongruent architecture, is a betrayal to the architectural style that is present in every stone of the place.

After all these physical observations of Virginia Highland, I would like to talk about the demographics. As I have previously researched and observed, the neighborhood is home to a pretty prosperous community. The cars in garages were good brands and shops and restaurants appealed to the upper class mostly. However, I also saw some very cheap condominiums and flats were students and lower income people reside. Apart from this partial diversity of income, there were people from different ethnicities, I saw many white people along with some African American and Hispanic people who were enjoying the neighborhood. I saw 4 churches and one synagogue on North Highland Avenue, indicating the different backgrounds of residents. While looking for community bonds, I found out that there are 3 neighborhood civic associations and 2 business communities, all of which strengthen the personal and commercial bonds of residents and local business.

My criteria for a neighborhood fit the traditional neighborhood definition and Virginia Highland complies with these criteria perfectly. I believe a traditional neighborhood is the most pleasant place a person can live in, due to the ease of life and the proximity of all basic necessities to homes. Community is stronger in traditional neighborhoods, residents have stronger bonds and they generally become happier pupils. I observed the happy residents of Virginia Highland and I justified my claim that a traditional neighborhood is better to live in than a suburban sprawl neighborhood.

Can Amado

inDECATUR

In today`s world where globalization adn becoming a global village is promoted, it is nice to see that there are people who preserve the spirit and coziness of a small community. As I was reading the blog inDECATUR, I saw that the authors of this blog are very conscious of their community within the giant metro Atlanta region. As I have observed, this blog is aimed both for people from and out of Decatur. Blog posts are very diverse, almost random, considering the distinct topics such as the history and legislature of Decatur and the Cookie Studio. He is very good in using media in his blog, enriched with a bunch of pictures for each post and an extensive list of links on the right column of the blog. The author also uses rss feed, twitter and facebook to promote and make his blog more interesting. It is obvious from his tone that the author is excited and proud with his community, he wants to enrich the community life by promoting non-Decatur residents to come to the town and encouraging Decatur residents to support local bussiness and events.

Can Amado

I'm getting hungry just reading about it...

The Blissful Glutton wrote about various food places in the Atlanta area. By no means are they nationally recognized, but they do seem to be worth a visit. The blog about Southern Sweets Bakery stood out the most to me. Jennifer Zyman's blog about the brownies in particular made my mouth water. Zyman writes about food places that normally people might overlook. These small businesses are very important to a community and add a certain flavor that distinguishes an area.

VL

Atlanta Unshelter Blog Review

We are living in an information age in which news in one country can reach the other side of the world in seconds. Thanks to this advancement in the delivery of information, the big news company need no to struggle to get an interesting piece of headline that will catch the readers' eyes. However, it seems that when we are able to access news in a faraway land, we forget about the local news. The big news companies are focusing on main issues of importance whether it is the politics in Washington D.C or the North Korean nuclear crisis. They are not giving as much attention to local news as before. However, the internet provides normal citizens to be news reporters and some people choose to use this opportunity to spread out the "not as much important" local news.

Atlanta Unsheltered is a blog created by an Atlanta journalist. The blog focuses on as what the blog title says, "News & views on politics, media & the environment." Once you have entered this blog, you can read entries about the up coming mayor candidates, or corners of Atlanta that require attention. I think the reason this blogger choose to create this blog is to create a place where people in the community can catch what is going on, to find out things that they cannot find out on TVs. The author of this blog wants to provide stories and insights from individual's perpective. I think this is a good blog to read in order to understand the city of Atlanta more.

Phumthep Bunnak