Comments on: Baby Gap Uber Alles? Or Why Atlantans are Getting Malled Through the Zone!

By: Teashook

Teashook — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 16:49:50 +0000

Um, no. Oregon is the only state in the union with this type of metro government/statewide zoning. It has caused a huge property owner backlash which is undermining all of land use planning. (Measure 37).

What does need to happen is that the state allocate resources to help fix the ground transportation problems.

ARC or the “Atlanta Regional County Commissioners” as they should be known can’t even encourage counties to utilize their livable centers initiatives. Metro city governments on the other hand are redeveloping and marrying transit with city centers that have real mixed use. See Decatur, Smyrna, Suwanee, etc.

The drive for new cities like Sandy Springs is coming from desire for local control of the character of smaller communities. Don’t kill the only thing going that is helping-local control.

If you want to end sprawl, curtail the power of arrogant hypocritical county comissions.

By: Some Other Mike

Some Other Mike — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 02:56:21 +0000

I vaguely remember posting about ’strip mall 2.x’ — developments consisting of ’shit retail’ (featuring at least one Moe’s and similar xenomorphed chains) with a condo tower, apartments, and/or a parking deck. Basically, a shop’s inclusion in such a development implies the shop sucks.

Alternately, I’ve described this concept as “cow pie in a green wrapper”, which is how the whole ‘mixed use’ concept is translated into actual development.

‘Soulless’ would be the most succinct description of both the people in charge of zoning around here, and the results they generate.

By: w

Tue, 26 Sep 2006 06:27:58 +0000

(Sigh)…no wonder people are leaving Atlanta in droves. There’s even been former-Atlantan sightings in Malibu; people who are culturally utterly out of place and furiously attempt to work on their regionally neutral dialects so they can one day seem like west-coast natives. Maybe the proposed “Immigration Control Wall” should be erected north to south, keeping everyone east of New Mexico at bay…lol…