Everyone who lives near a city knows all too well how much location – specifically, proximity to the commuter rail — matters. The shorter the drive is to the station, the better. And the ability to walk there trumps just about everything.
Such convenience is about to come to thousands in Atlanta. That city’s metro system MARTA has started making real estate deals to build housing to unused transit parking lots. MARTA plans to turn the space at the King Memorial, Edgewood, and Edgewood/Chandler Park stations into combination residential and retail developments.
“People have been looking at these parking lots for decades wondering why they were just sitting there,” Amanda Rhein, senior director of transit-oriented development at MARTA, told City Lab.
Now, that is finally changing — and it’s not only helping commuters, but also the railroad itself. Without state funding, MARTA’s bottom line is very easily impacted by the ups and downs of the economy. So, when Keith Parker took over the agency in 2012, he decided that a bold project like this is what was required to keep it competitive. The development will not only produce revenue from all the train riders, but also with each unit sold, will raise money for the transit system that it can use for improvements.
And so far, Parker’s decision is looking like a good one. MARTA has successfully leased land to developers for mixed-use buildings that are focused on the adjacent transit opportunities, including a project on a four-acre unused parking lot that features 13,000 square feet of retails space and 386 housing units.
The boon does not only belong to the railroads, though; it is the entire community’s as these projects could decrease traffic on the roads. And on top of that, there is more to the new spaces then one might think. Beyond all the great new housing and shops, each development will also feature a public park as well as have at least 20 percent of the units dedicated to affordable housing.
While construction has yet to start, there’s already hope for more in the future since this model is good for both the city of Atlanta, its citizens and the transit system itself.
“We’re going to make the stations themselves and the surrounding areas more pleasant and more easily accessible, and we’ll be providing amenities to our riders and to the surrounding community. So I think people will realize that and give MARTA a chance,” says Rhein.
DON’T MISS: Here’s How High-Speed Rail Is Inching Closer to Becoming a Reality In California
Tag: Suburbs
Cities or Suburbs: Which Area is Seeing a Population Boom?
Close your eyes and picture idyllic tree-lined streets in a cheery suburban neighborhood. If you open your eyes, however, you might still see that image — only there might be a lot of “for sale” signs posted in front yards or dark houses due to vacancy.
That’s because cities are now seeing a population influx. According to census analysis by William Frey of the Brookings Institution, this could be the decade of big-city growth.
Analyzing data from 2010-2013, Frey was able to figure out that cities themselves — not just their metropolitan areas — grew at a measurably faster rate than suburbs, with “primary cities” (those with a population over 1 million) growing 1.13 percent from 2011 to 2012. At the same time, suburban areas grew at only .95 percent.
While the difference (and growth rate itself) may seem minimal, it reflects more significant changes that are happening in a select number of cities such as New Orleans; Washington, D.C.; San Jose, California; Austin, Texas; Raleigh-Cary, North Carolina; Denver; and Seattle. All those cities have even faster growth rates even faster than the national average!
Although there are a variety of reasons that people may be migrating back to cities, one that we’ve mentioned before is the rise of the innovation district – urban areas that are easily accessible and combine a variety of organizations and people advancing ideas and promoting ingenuity. These areas attract not only jobs, but because of their cosmopolitan and integrated feel, residents too.
Another specific driver of growth could be the new transportation initiative in Minneapolis-St. Paul, another booming city, according to City Lab.
So, does this mean the demise of white picket fences and two-car garages? Hardly. As the study points out, the suburbs are continuing to grow, albeit at a slower pace. But with growth, comes innovation — giving cities the upper hand.
Tech Companies Are Stepping into the Urban Fray. Here’s Why
It’s officially a mass exodus: Techies are decamping from “Nerdistan” and heading for the big city.
Thank Richard Florida, urban studies theorist and author of The Rise of the Creative Class, for this particular “–stan,” which he uses to describe the suburban office parks ringed with vast parking lots where tech companies have traditionally set up shop.
These isolated Nerdistans are declining in popularity, Florida and others have noticed, in favor of companies headquartered in urban centers — extra points if they’re within walking distance of public transit.
“Cities were always the cradles of innovation,” said Florida, as quoted in a recent Boston Globe article on the suburb-to-city trend. “Suburbanization was a deviation on the course of history.”
Take the Boston metro area, for example. Recent research from recruitment firm WinterWyman found that in 2013, 63 percent of available software jobs were in the urban core of Cambridge and Boston, and only 13 percent were located in suburbs Burlington, Lexington, and Waltham, where, back in the 1990s, the majority of such jobs were based when high downtown rents and space needs made the suburbs a no-brainer.
Why the flight from suburbia?
Now, software companies don’t need the square-footage that once held servers and other oversized equipment. And tech CEOs say they’re willing to pay cities’ higher rents when it means having a wider selection of top talent — including young urbanites eager to hold tight to their car-free commutes.
Other cities with high techie concentrations — San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, New York — are exhibiting similar patterns of urban migration.
Who knows, if Richard Florida is right, maybe the hours-long, smoggy suburban commute will soon be headed the way of the Commodore 64.
Moving to the Suburbs? 5 Ways to Survive Urban Sprawl
Living in the suburbs gets a bad rap. Many would say for good reason: People who live in the far-flung suburbs are less socially connected, less happy and not as healthy as those residing in cities. Suburbanites also have less economic opportunity and spend a bigger chunk of their income on housing and transportation (how’s that commute working for you?). As a recent survey by the nonprofit coalition Smart Growth America puts it, metro areas with “more compact, connected neighborhoods are associated with…a better quality of life for everyone in that community.”
We’ve been debating the pros and cons of suburban existence for some 60 years in the United States — ever since the term “urban sprawl” entered the popular lexicon. But if you ask Robert Bruegmann, a professor of art history at the University of Illinois at Chicago and author of “Sprawl: A Compact History,” suburban living is neither an American phenomenon nor a new one. Bruegmann cites evidence of people living in the suburbs during the Ming Dynasty and in ancient Rome — then, as now, sprawl was prompted by the desire for space and privacy. Bruegmann also argues that while sprawl is no perfect solution, its social and economic benefits vastly outweigh its problems.
It’s a lively and ongoing debate, well worth exploring, but meanwhile, half of the American population currently lives in the suburbs, according to the U.S. Census, either by choice or by circumstance, and they’re not likely to be heading back into the city anytime soon. So what can we do now to infuse our sprawling suburbs with the same sorts of social, psychological and economic advantages that make cities so alluring? Below are five ways to bring vibrancy to life in the ’burbs — including some advice on how to deal with the long commute.
[ph]
[ph]
[ph]
[ph]
[ph]
Can Living in a City Give You a Leg Up in Life?
We’ve been hearing for years that people who live in cities tend to be thinner and more active than those who live in suburbs—all that walking and climbing stairs seems to contribute—but a new study finds that people who live in densely-packed cities also are more likely to be agile in a different way: climbing the economic and social ladder.
The study by Smart Growth America and the University of Utah’s Metropolitan Urban Center is significant because it quantifies urban sprawl. Sprawl is not just about how much land is occupied by a city. As the authors write, “sprawl is not just growth, but is a specific, and dysfunctional, style of growth.” The study shows that the health benefits that correlate with city living are specific to dense cities, where residents have lower rates of obesity and diabetes. Residents of sprawled-out cities such as Atlanta do not show the same benefits as do those living in packed-in places such as New York.
Reid Ewing of the University of Utah, lead researcher on the study, told Lane Anderson of Deseret News, “Urban places provide higher likelihood of moving up the social ladder. Compact places provide better access to jobs, better transit and more integration.” The study judged Los Angeles to be relatively dense compared to Atlanta and other sprawling places, and found that a child in L.A. has a 10 percent chance of moving from the bottom of the income scale to the top, while an Atlanta-based low-income child has only a 4 percent of chance of such a rise.
Ewing said that one factor in this difference might be transportation—denser cities tend to have better public transportation, which gives citizens of all income levels more access to better jobs and schools, but is especially important for low-income people who may not have a car. Better mixing between people of different ethnicities and economic levels might contribute to the social mobility, too. “In dense areas, there are more chances for networking, for meeting people, more chances of getting better salaries and jobs,” he said. And riding the train also seems to keep people thinner—train riders are 6.5 pounds lighter than car drivers, according to The American Journal of Preventive Medicine, and they’re 81 percent less likely to ever become obese. One twist: the study found that kids get more exercise in the suburbs where they can run around in backyards and playgrounds, and adults get more exercise in cities, where they are forced to hoof it.
The authors of the study hope their findings will encourage more cities to implement healthy changes, such as bike-share programs, more mixed-use developments, and improved transportation. Or, as Ewing asks, “It’s time to ask the question again, how can we make cities better?”
MORE: More College Graduates Moving Into Cities