Learn more about this new series about post-zombie apocalyptic Atlanta HERE.

h/t: Atlanta Magazine

Short teaser video with a couple more street shots of Atlanta after the jump.

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At last night’s Decatur City Commission meeting, Mayor Bill Floyd presented his fellow commissioners with a draft of a resolution (see pages 127 and 128 of the attached materials from the meeting) that would show support for the transportation referendum one-cent sales if the 10-county district would also support creation of a regional transportation system for the Atlanta metro area.

He told the commission that DeKalb’s other cities were considering similar resolutions.

Fulton County’s mayors – sans Kasim Reed – have recently proposed a similar deal, though they indicated only Cobb, Gwinnett and Clayton would have to agree to be part of the regional transportation system.

Though the resolution did indicate that he supported the penny sales tax on top of the existing MARTA penny sales tax, Mr. Floyd  expressed concern over getting the transportation referendum passed if we were saddling the greatest proponents of initiative – Fulton and DeKalb residents – with an extra penny.

He noted that conversations on the details of a regional system were ongoing and there had even been talk of “weighted voting”, where DeKalb and Fulton residents would get a greater say in regional transportation decisions if they were paying twice as much as the outer counties.

HistoryJoe showed us how to see the street grid in Eric Fisher’s Top U.S. Cities race maps in the other post, so here’s what Decatur’s race and ethnicity looked like 10 years ago.

Again, each dot represents 25 people and blue = Black, red = White, green = Asian, orange = Hispanic.

Courthouse Square and the Commerce Loop are probably the most identifiable elements near the center of the map.

While no one on the Decatur City Commission brought up the potential walkability concerns of limiting residential child care to 10,000+ square foot lots at last night’s meeting, the popular national transportation website, Streetsblog, picked up my post from yesterday and ran with it.

In fact, we’re their front page story today!  Here’s the first few paragraphs from their post…

In the movement for sustainable transportation, it’s often the sexy stories that monopolize our attention: crazy anti-transit politicians, re-imagining streets for safer biking and walking, potential freeway teardowns.

But a lot of the time, when livability and active transportation come under assault, it’s in rather mundane circumstances. As this example from suburban Atlanta goes to show, some of the most consequential battlegrounds are still the local planning commissions and zoning boards.

Network blog Decatur Metro offers the case of the Decatur City Commission’s consideration of a new ordinance to allow family daycares on two major thoroughfares. Watch how quickly and ruthlessly the value of walkability is undermined, on the grounds of neighbors’ imagined complaints:

Actually that last paragraph should read “Decatur’s Planning Commission”, not the City Commission.

Picture courtesy of the City of Bartlesville.  Idea to use a cute picture of kids on a sidewalk, courtesy of Streetsblog.

As the story goes, Eric Fisher was so fascinated by cartographer Bill Rankin’s race map of Chicago, that he created one for each of the top 40 U.S. cities using 2000 census data.  According to Gawker, Rankin used the same method as Rankin; “one dot equals 25 people. The dots are then color-coded based on race: White is pink; Black is blue; Hispanic is orange, and Asian is green.”

While some of the denser urban cities, like New York City, reveal more dramatic patterns, Atlanta above is also quite interesting once you get your bearings.  The actual Flickr image might be of assistance, since a few people have already identified areas of the city (including Decatur) for you.

Buford Highway is probably the most obvious feature on the map above, with the strip of orange and green extending up Buford Highway and I-85 in the upper right corner of the map.  Decatur sits below that, along the red/blue divide of the CSX rail line.  White areas of the maps are often airports and train yards.  Hartsfield is quite noticeable in the lower half of the map.

It would certainly be interesting to see this same map again with 2010 data once it becomes available!

h/t: FMFats