Report: Atlanta, Nashville Areas Rated among Worst for Sprawl

[SunDevil]

If they are using the MSA statistics, does that mean Phoenix's index is based on the entirety of Maricopa and Pinal counties, an area that is about the size of Massachusetts and Connecticut combined (at least according to rough calcuations from Wiki data)?

[Atlriser]

If you read the paper, it's clear they are pulling crap from their butts! It starts off stating the data is from 2010. Then in the write up about LA, the paper gives 3 zoning ordinances that have resulted in LA becoming denser. One of the ordinances hasn't even become law yet and the other 2 are less than 4 years old. It is 2014 right? So how can local laws affect development data pre 2010 when they weren't even written yet??

[TarHeelJ]

Originally Posted by chris08876

O dear, looking at some of these metro regions from satellite imagery makes me sick. The damage from the sprawl is very extensive. These areas will never recover from it. Driving through the South, I did always wonder why states like NC, SC, and Georgia sprawl so much. Its insane how Southern Cities all feel like sparsely populated suburbs. California might have sprawl, but the density makes it seem very city "ish". I'd rather have dense, compact sprawl then sprawl where the average land plot is 3+ acres or more.

It's very hard to accurately judge an area by "driving through". You can only see development around the highways, which isn't usually impressive. I would suggest getting out of your car before you make such negative statements.

I instantly thought the same about this "study" as some people in this thread...it doesn't seem very professional.

[Stratosphere 2020]

Kind of a odd report, since most reports say Atlanta sprawling days are over, and there is alot of infill going on. You just don't know who to believe anymore.

[TarHeelJ]

Originally Posted by Stratosphere 2020

Kind of a odd report, since most reports say Atlanta sprawling days are over, and there is alot of infill going on. You just don't know who to believe anymore.

True...and Atlanta ranked virtually even with Hickory NC? Please.

Here is an interesting article from October 2013 that supports the above statement. Since 2009 60% of Atlanta development has been in walkable/urban areas, signifying a huge shift in an historically sprawling city. http://www.theatlanticcities.com/hou...k-sprawl/7102/

[dktshb]

Interesting:

021. Los Angeles,
182. Houston;
217. Nashville; and
220. Atlanta

Pg. 14 mentions that Los Angeles had the second highest density score second only to NY.

People need to stop associating Los Angeles with these other sprawling cities of the Southern US.

[BnaBreaker]

Originally Posted by dktshb

Interesting:

021. Los Angeles,
182. Houston;
217. Nashville; and
220. Atlanta

Pg. 14 mentions that Los Angeles had the second highest density score second only to NY.

People need to stop associating Los Angeles with these other sprawling cities of the Southern US.

I love Los Angeles, and you're right that it's sprawl is definitely denser than what you find in Atlanta, but make no mistake about it. Los Angeles is still one sprawly bitch. I mean, it takes three hours on a good day to drive from Redlands to Santa Barbara.

[edluva]

well, the first step in creating a credible ranking would be to define to define "sprawl".

the next step would be to come up with a metric to measure it.

the first step is already a nearly impossible task, as there is no science behind what constitutes "sprawl", as it's a more qualitative than quantitative concept.

[Tuckerman]

Originally Posted by edluva

well, the first step in creating a credible ranking would be to define to define "sprawl".

the next step would be to come up with a metric to measure it.

the first step is already a nearly impossible task, as there is no science behind what constitutes "sprawl", as it's a more qualitative than quantitative concept.

Quite right. Sprawl is not only a qualitative concept but also is loaded with affect, particularly among "urbanists." There is no doubt that most would consider LA to be a sprawling place and also the same with Atlanta. However, these are very different cities in terms of the way they developed and spread. One is geographically in a large basin with primary physical barriers, ocean and mountains; the other is Piedmont with almost unbounded development in all directions. Both share strong linear development along major highways and in that sense they are both 20th century urban areas. But these are just examples of how one can look for similarities in comparisons; looking for differences would provide another list of comparisons. In point of fact, it is hard to find any modern city in the USA (or much of the world) that does not have highly developed sprawl, if one considers sprawl to be rather uncontrolled growth and spread of an urban area over a perviously rural one. Many urbanists are stuck in the post Mumford thinking that the ideal city is one with a strong center - preferably with a city hall, a big church (cathedral), a market square and shops where all the surrounding residents gather everyday and conduct their business - and the best examples may actually have a wall around the whole city and then glorious green space outside each gate. A lovely view of the world that perhaps didn't even exist when it existed. I believe it is time to put away the emotional rhetoric about sprawl and deal with the urban areas that people have actually created over the past century and continue to create. The reality is that LA, like Atlanta, are exciting urban areas in their own right and the people that live in these areas use them to build their unique lifestyles. Not everybody's lifestyle fits well with all the myriad possible urban areas. Fortunately, many people have the ability and possibility to move to where they seem to fit - and that is exactly what has been happening in the past half century.

[mhays]

It's not so much that it moves outward. It's that it's often so inefficient, wasteful, destructive, and ugly. And often at the detriment of older areas.

If a city is growing by 25% per decade, of course it'll move outward. But let's see it do that without leapfrogging, with good transit, walkability, and mix of uses.

[simms3_redux]

There really is no point for metro Atlanta to take the space that it does, though, given its population. The city itself is really no more dense overall than surrounding suburban counties (Gwinnett, Cobb, Dekalb, Clayton, North Fulton), and then of the ~25 or so other counties, they are all uniformly at incredibly low (<1,000 ppsm) density. In the process, the natural landscape that surrounded the city and is quite beautiful gets tainted.

LA "sprawls" over a lot of area, but if you look at the overall population surrounding LA (approaching 20 million people) and the fact that development patterns are mostly in flatlands, and within defined topographical bounds, the LA area actually does ok for itself. Its least dense areas are still more dense than much of Atlanta's most dense areas.

The unfortunate thing about Atlanta is while its core is developing (the same can still be said about already dense, built out cores such as in NYC, Chicago, and SF), many people moving to Atlanta are actually attracted to the "ultra exurban lifestyle". Having a house with a large yard on a cul de sac 3 counties out and commuting in is seen as desirable. I feel like it's a snowball that has gained so much momentum it will be difficult to stop, but as evidenced by the past 5-7 years of growth in the metro, it is slowing.

[eternallyme]

Most of those counties listed are centered around a fairly small city, and have numerous smaller towns (i.e. Hickory NC, Greenville SC), which has much of the development being pre-war rural areas even very close to the central core. Those are hard to compare to true sprawling cities like Atlanta.

[L41A]

Originally Posted by eternallyme

Most of those counties listed are centered around a fairly small city, and have numerous smaller towns (i.e. Hickory NC, Greenville SC), which has much of the development being pre-war rural areas even very close to the central core. Those are hard to compare to true sprawling cities like Atlanta.

Huh? What are you saying? Well..... never mind. It's just hard to follow what you are trying to say.

[TarHeelJ]

Originally Posted by L41A

Huh? What are you saying? Well..... never mind. It's just hard to follow what you are trying to say.

I don't get it either...because the city of Atlanta is a fairly small city with numerous smaller cities in the metro area - just like what he described. I read his post twenty times and still couldn't quite understand it.

[Tuckerman]

Quite right. Atlanta city itself is less than 10% of the metro areas population. In fact many of the close in other cities like Decatur, Marietta, Dunwoody, Tucker, Roswell and others had core centers or at least a fiction of independence and they grew out as the core city of Atlanta grew out an eventually they covered over each other. They often retain their original core, Decatur is an excellent example, it has many of the characteristics of a small city, with an intact core and housing around that core. But at some point it just folds into the expanding urban area that we call Atlanta. Like most cities, people who live in the Atlanta area may in fact have their residence in in Decatur or Tucker or Druid Hills of Brookhaven or Sandy Springs, but in a larger sense they see themselves as from Atlanta when viewed from an outsiders perspective. Self identification is related to who is asking the question. If a person from Atlanta asks another Atlantan where do you live, the person might say Buckhead or Decatur; if a person at a dinner party in San Francisco asks a person from Sandy Springs where do you live the response would likely be Atlanta. Like most places in the world the metro area has one identification, but for locals the area is broken up into subdivisions and components.

[TarHeelJ]

Originally Posted by Tuckerman

Quite right. Atlanta city itself is less than 10% of the metro areas population. In fact many of the close in other cities like Decatur, Marietta, Dunwoody, Tucker, Roswell and others had core centers or at least a fiction of independence and they grew out as the core city of Atlanta grew out an eventually they covered over each other. They often retain their original core, Decatur is an excellent example, it has many of the characteristics of a small city, with an intact core and housing around that core. But at some point it just folds into the expanding urban area that we call Atlanta. Like most cities, people who live in the Atlanta area may in fact have their residence in in Decatur or Tucker or Druid Hills of Brookhaven or Sandy Springs, but in a larger sense they see themselves as from Atlanta when viewed from an outsiders perspective. Self identification is related to who is asking the question. If a person from Atlanta asks another Atlantan where do you live, the person might say Buckhead or Decatur; if a person at a dinner party in San Francisco asks a person from Sandy Springs where do you live the response would likely be Atlanta. Like most places in the world the metro area has one identification, but for locals the area is broken up into subdivisions and components.

East Point is another one that shares borders with Atlanta, is connected by transit, and has a nice little urban downtown. It reminds me of Decatur in a lot of ways...just needs a little of the love Decatur has received over the past few years. I just couldn't understand the post above that seemed to say that Atlanta is not the way you just described.

[shivtim]

Originally Posted by simms3_redux

There really is no point for metro Atlanta to take the space that it does, though, given its population. The city itself is really no more dense overall than surrounding suburban counties (Gwinnett, Cobb, Dekalb, Clayton, North Fulton), and then of the ~25 or so other counties, they are all uniformly at incredibly low (<1,000 ppsm) density. In the process, the natural landscape that surrounded the city and is quite beautiful gets tainted.

I see what you're getting at, and everybody agrees the Atlanta metro is incredibly sprawling, but some of your assumptions and comparisons are way off base. It's not accurate at all to say the city of Atlanta is no more dense than the surrounding counties. Atlanta is about 3300 p/sqmi. Fulton as a whole, Clayton, Gwinnett, and Cobb are all under 2000 p/sqmi. Atlanta is more than twice as dense as Clayton or Gwinnett. Dekalb is the densest county at 2500, and that includes part of the city of Atlanta. Then of course there are areas within Atlanta - parts of Midtown, West End, Sweet Auburn and the Ponce corridor - that are well over 15,000 p/sqmi and growing (the most dense tract has just over 40,000 p/sqmi). Nothing in the suburbs can touch that. So it's not really accurate or fair to say that the city of Atlanta has the same density as the surrounding suburbs. Maybe a more accurate statement is that the city/suburb density difference isn't as great in Atlanta as it is in many other cities. This is partially because the city of Atlanta is still less dense than many other cities, and the inner suburbs are more dense than many other suburbs around the country.

[Atlriser]

Amazing how different the data becomes if you compare the USA.com site which uses data and statistical areas defined by the US Census. Atlanta is 23 out of 942 metros in density. It's ahead of Portland, Seattle, Houston, Minneapolis, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Charlotte, St. Louis, Denver, Pittsburgh, Phoenix.... just to name a few metros.

At least the usa.com site is using comparable census statistical data based on fixed definitions. This report is pure opinion and divides areas arbitrarily and chooses random data without factual data backup to try and justify an opinion and pass it off as actual research.

Oh and btw Nashville is 107 out of 942 metros.

[Tuckerman]

As I mentioned earlier, this report is heavily biased and fundamentally flawed. In any case city density is always tricky; in the case of Atlanta, the Buckhead area has very large houses with a lot of acreage per house - thus the density is quite low (probably almost rural), however Buckhead is in the city limits. Many big metro areas have such areas which may or may not be in the political area of core city. This is why comparisons that just consider one variable at a time run into such contradictions. We need to give up on these facile comparisons and consider the context and complexities of urban areas when trying to make any judgmental comparisons.

[Steely Dan]

of the 41 cenus-defined Urban Areas (UA) with over 1,000,000 people, atlanta ranks 2nd to last in the nation by average density (cenusus 2010).

weighted density for UAs would be a better way to calculate things, but i can't find a comprehensive list for UA weighted densities. in any evet, my guess is that Atlanta would still be at the bottom by weighted density as well. of america's large urban areas, atlanta is one of the least dense.


US Urban Areas >1,000,000 people ranked by density:

1. Los Angeles - 6,999.3 ppsm
2. San Francisco - 6,266.4 ppsm
3. San Jose - 5,820.3 ppsm
4. New York - 5,318.9 ppsm
5. Las Vegas - 4,524.5 ppsm
6. Miami - 4,442.4 ppsm
7. San Diego - 4,037.0 ppsm
8. Salt Lake City - 3,675.1 ppsm
9. Sacramento - 3,659.7 ppsm
10. Denver - 3,554.4 ppsm
    
    
11. Riverside - 3,546.4 ppsm
12. Portland - 3,527.8 ppsm
13. Chicago - 3,524.0 ppsm
14. Washington D.C. - 3,470.3 ppsm
15. Phoenix - 3,165.2 ppsm
16. Baltimore - 3,073.3 ppsm
17. Seattle - 3,028.2 ppsm
18. Houston - 2,978.5 ppsm
19. San Antonio - 2,944.6 ppsm
20. Dallas - 2,878.9 ppsm
    
    
21. Virginia Beach - 2,793.0 ppsm
22. Detroit - 2,792.5 ppsm
23. Philadelphia - 2,746.4 ppsm
24. Columbus - 2,680.0 ppsm
25. Austin - 2,604.8 ppsm
26. Minneapolis - 2,594.3 ppsm
27. Tampa - 2,551.5 ppsm
28. Orlando - 2,527.3 ppsm
29. Milwaukee - 2,522.8 ppsm
30. St. Louis - 2,328.5 ppsm
    
    
31. Cleveland - 2,306.7 ppsm
32. Kansas City - 2,241.6 ppsm
33. Boston - 2,231.7 ppsm
34. Providence - 2,185.1 ppsm
35. Memphis - 2,131.6 ppsm
36. Indianapolis - 2,107.7 ppsm
37. Cincinnati - 2,062.6 ppsm
38. Jacksonville - 2,008.5 ppsm
39. Pittsburgh - 1,915.5 ppsm
40. Atlanta - 1,706.9 ppsm
    
    
41. Charlotte - 1,685.0 ppsm

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...es_urban_areas