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Atlanta Starts to Act Like a City

After spending as much as a month every year in Atlanta for close to 20 years, earlier this week I made my first trip back since 2004. And the changes are dramatic -- especially the ramped up urbanizing and high-rise apartment development of the Midtown and Buckhead business districts as well as signs...

By Jonathan D. Miller | Updated on March 26, 2008

After spending as much as a month every year in Atlanta for close to 20 years, earlier this week I made my first trip back since 2004. And the changes are dramatic — especially the ramped up urbanizing and high-rise apartment development of the Midtown and Buckhead business districts as well as signs of life in the downtown.

Of the rapidly developing, post World War II suburban agglomerations, Denver has been leading the pack in figuring out how to escape a car dependent environment, centering a new hub and spoke light rail system in its downtown and building out its LoDo entertainment district. New development, including multifamily, concentrates around transit stations and the downtown has been reviving. Atlanta has become one of the most congested far-flung American metros. Now, increasingly empty nesters and career-building singles look to escape commuting hassles by settling in infill locations. Condos and apartments spring up from the northend of downtown through a new “Miracle Mile” in Midtown, at key Marta subway stops along the way to Buckhead, and then along Peachtree Road to the Buckhead Loop at Phipps and Lenox Malls. The skyline starts to fill in with an attractive, dynamic city feel of glass boxes and stone towers along the spine of the interstate and Marta north-south line. In new districts like Atlantic Station people can actually walk to grocery and drug stores, something new and different for most denizens.

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