Thursday, January 26, 2012
Wonk Brookings' Leinberger says metro Atlanta needs to 'go back to its roots'
Posted by Thomas Wheatley @thomaswheatley on Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 12:41 PM
Christopher Leinberger, a land-use guru and one of the Brookings Institute's leading smart-growth champions, took a look at metro Atlanta's cheap home prices, gridlock, and woeful economy. He says the metro region needs to "go back to its [railroad] roots" if it wants to regain its footing as a vibrant, powerful region.
More specifically: approve the 1-cent transportation sales tax this July which could pay for rail investments and help build walkable neighborhoods.
There's no doubt Leinberger's critique has some metro leaders feeling a bit peeved this afternoon. Hell, if it would've appeared in the Wall Street Journal we probably would've seen some press releases denouncing Leinberger by now.
Comments (4)
Showing 1-4 of 4
As a smart-growth dude myself, I agree with his assessments and recommendations in this piece. I think it's hard to build a rational argument against that idea that reducing the dominance of cars and highways in Atlanta's transportation model -- and pointing new construction into a pattern that caters to alternative transportation options -- is something that will help the economic vitality of our area in the long run.
But as a fan of well-written things, I'm a little disappointed that Leinberger seems to be basically offering an abbreviated retread of his NY Times piece "The Death of the Fringe Suburb" from last year, with some localized material for Atlanta.
Maybe I expect too much. I'll do that from time to time.
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I have mixed feelings about Atlanta's future. There's just so much animosity between our core and the suburbs. And I feel like the city is always depending on the whims of those OTP. I am hopeful though that the construction of the streetcar will at least get things going intown. The majority of the intown neighborhoods were built on the streetcar and its modern incarnation could work just as well.
how come nobody pays me to state the obvious and to retread articles that have been posted continuously for the last twenty years
http://bss.sfsu.edu/jhenders/Writings/Hend…
Don't feel bad Eric. While I have great respect for Mr. Leinberger and his work, that editorial is nothing more than a an outgrowth of the substantial work the Brookings Institute and Mr. Leinberger does for the Chamber.
The Chamber will be getting other "experts" to write some materials. The Chamber talks a great game on transpo and land use but when it comes down to it as long as the region is spending more on transportation - no matter what it is - their members are happy because it will lead to short term growth in revenues - especially for their most active members - developers, office managers/owners and other real estate investors.
Sadly I don't think Mr. Leinberger's call for more Transit Oriented Development will result from the tax. To the extent more TOD opportunities are created, the tax will generate more auto oriented development in the northern quarter of the region - the favored quarter (apologies to Mr. Leinberger for using his phrase http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/6…
If the uber regressive 1% transportation sales tax actually resulted in 51 % of its revenues being spent on new transit construction it still would be dwarfed in terms of capacity additions by spending an equal amount on roads. And as seen in Cobb its very likely that Metro Atlanta history will repeat itself and a significant portion of the transit on the list will NOT get built. Thus sending the "transit funds" to other road projects or sending them back to each county on a proportional basis to be used as they see fit.
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