Comments on: Where’s the Center of Atlanta Today?

By: Decatur Metro

Decatur Metro — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 21:02:07 +0000

Really I’m asking about the economic center of the city. I wasn’t specific enough in my original post. But you may be right, in that there’s not really a “center”. A less controversial interpretation is that Peachtree is the spine of Atlanta.

By: unclecharlie

unclecharlie — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 17:28:54 +0000

Maybe we should call it center of gravity. Population and economy may be increasingly weighing down the north side but the airport is like lead ballast on the south, (though it is a single destination and already served). Education, government, sports, arts all pull towards down/mid town.

The question to me is whether population and economics changes are enough to prioritize new trains of that serve the same function as existing trains but in a different place, (point to point commuting between new points). Or whether it is more functional to build systems that distribute commuters from existing infrastructure, (streetcar or concentrated bus networks around current stations). Of course if the money is collected from people willing to tax themselves, we will build what they want.

By: TOK

TOK — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 16:55:39 +0000

Well, I’d say that downtown is the transportation center (obviously), but also, it still has a lot of business centers, plus the gov’t, plus GSU, so it’s still a center for a lot of the governmental and corporate activity, even if it’s not a residential center. But of course you could easily make a case that midtown or even the upper perimeter have a bunch of businesses too, and more heavily populated, and are closer to the population ‘center’ of the metro region. My vague sense, though, is that the metro area of so spread out and bloblike, with no one area being significantly denser than all of the others, both in terms of residential and of business activity, or in terms of employment and where people commute, that we don’t have a unique center.

By: Decatur Metro

Decatur Metro — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 16:42:00 +0000

Really?

By: unclecharlie

unclecharlie — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 16:36:11 +0000

Scale and style of infrastructure may have more of an impact. Long lines between Kennesaw and Dunwoody will help commuters that work, or want to shop, in buildings adjacent to stations. But few people (of means) will take a train then get on a bus for the last mile. That will be more of a problem around the north perimeter than it is downtown since it is a much larger area.

It will be interesting to see if the Downtown Streetcar changes perceptions the way streetcars have in other cities. Of course the new Streetcar may not provide any more of a functional system than we have now until it is built out into a grid. Which of course may be never.