Atlantic Station

In New York it’s easy to get around without a car, in Atlanta it’s a lot trickier. It is even trickier because there are few neighborhoods that provide the convenience needed to live car-free – namely grocery stores and convenience to transit. So keeping that in mind, I would recommend Atlantic Station to be one of the most preeminent places to live in downtown Atlanta. While somewhat on its own island across from midtown, Atlantic Station has a shuttle that transits to different stops around town. However, walking is the best way to go around here. There are sidewalks everywhere; great for walk ability (shown in this video below).


The apartments and town homes found here have a center communal space, great for socializing with neighbors or to walk your dog; it’s like a mini-park (found in the video below).


Grocery shopping is found at Publix and/or Target which is right down the street. Ikea is also a big hit in town for furniture. The retail shopping stores, bowling alley and Regal Cinema, and various restaurants all add to a great nightlife in this neighborhood. This is a popular neighborhood for Georgia Tech students to spend their weekends.
posted by: Sarah Chang

summary of "A (Radical) Way to Fix Suburban Sprawl." by Nicki Meyer

The blog I read was called "A (Radical) Way to Fix Suburban Sprawl." It used the example of a city in Virginia called Tysons Corner. It showed that this was such a great example of sprawl because of several reasons. Not only does it have more parking spaces than it does actual residents, but 110,000 extra people a day commute to this city for work, and also, it is known to be a pedestrian's worst nightmare. These characters are few of many that contribute to this sprawling city.

A major project has been laid out: to unsprawl Tysons Corner. In order to do this, it is very complicated and will take a lot of time. Public transportation will be expanded, costing hundreds of millions of dollars. It is said that 95% of houses in Tysons Corner will be within a half mile of the Metro Line, or shuttles (public transportation). This will help with all the smog that is mentioned. Less traffic will definitely be a result of this. Instead of people driving themselves everyday, a lot of gas will be saved as well as hours waiting in traffic. Extra money will also be provided to make Tysons Corner walkable and bicycle friendly. This is helping to move away from sprawl, because it becomes more pedestrian friendly and will encourage people to get out of their vehicles and walk or bicycle to work. People also can be moved closer to their jobs by having more housing developments put in.

A huge increase in housing developments is going to take place as well. This will eventually triple the population. The city will be more centered around people and not vehicles. Due to the increase in housing, there will be a decrease in parking lots, streets, and other vehicle related things. This is put into place to help people live closer to their jobs, and not have to commute so far everyday to work with cars. Dead end roads are being created to encourage walking. If these goals are reached, Tysons Corner will be moving further and further away from sprawl.

my computer wouldnt allow me to add a link, so here it is:

A (Radical) Way to Fix Suburban Sprawl

Ahmed Ismail

Using the Library's article database, I found this article written by Lisa Selin David early this year on nothing other than suburban sprawl. The article focuses on "ways to redesign cities to reduce the effects of urban sprawl and to make them more environment- and people-friendly." Tysons Corner, Virginia is used as an example of suburban sprawl the article is talking about ways fix this place. Her ideas include ways to somehow renew the urban setting or the "overgrown office park" as she sometimes puts it.


"The overgrown office park--which sprang up around Tysons Corner Center, the ninth largest indoor mall in the U.S.--has become the opposite of a bedroom community." Some 120,000 people work in Tysons, but only 17,000 live here."'Every morning, 110,000 cars arrive, and they all leave at 5,' says Clark Tyler, a former federal transportation official and the chairman of a task force whose ambitious goal is to help transform Tysons into a full-fledged city--where people live and work and play 24 hours a day."



"To help turn this overgrown office park into a real city, Tysons' redevelopment task force wants to add as much as six times the number of existing housing units--bringing the total to 50,000--so more people can live closer to where they work." She does however cover all points by stating some of the problems that would occur when trting to execute some of these ideas, "Key challenges include getting private landowners to create a grid of streets and ensuring that development doesn't outpace the infrastructure to support the proposed 85,000 new residents," as related to the housing problem that was mentioned before.

Decatur, Georgia

Ahmed Ismail

A few stations away on the MARTA track from the heart of Atlanta is a town named Decatur, named after Stephen Decatur, a United States Navy officer at the turn of the 19th Century. Like I have mentioned in a previous posting, Decatur is is home to about 18,000 Georgians and is just to the west of I-285 and a few miles east I-75 and I-85 in the heart of metropolitan Atlanta.

Its citizens are a very friendly sort, where conversation is bound to start up somewhere as you pass by all the local businesses and shops. There are a wide variety of things to buy, eat, drink, and play on the main streets of Decatur, and the place is most certainly lively on any day of the week. As you leave the train station, you will notice all the people in or around all over the shops or the green spaces. The city hall is well within walking distance of just about anywhere within the town as well as the high school and Agnes Scott College, which is the all girls school located in the southern part of this community.

People all over this neighborhood enjoy living in it so much that they keep a multitude of blogs to share stories and make announcements; the most famous of which is inDECATUR, a blog that boasts just about 7 posts a day from all you can think of.

Below are some of the pictures I took with my phone while I was there. (Please Click on each of them to see them in full view)

Buckhead Forest in Buckhead, GA

The neighborhood I chose to evaluate is Buckhead Forest which is located on the split of Roswell Road and Peachtree Road, directly in the center of Buckhead, Georgia. Buckhead is a city, not as large as Atlanta but developing into one, that is in “uptown” Atlanta. Buckhead Forest is filled with many cottage-like houses. Each house has its own characteristics so that not any two houses are alike. Many new townhomes and single-family homes are being built in this neighborhood as well. Due to its centrality, Buckhead Forest has easy accessibility to many social facilities, like Buckhead Church or Lenox Mall. It is also right by the Marta Bus and Buckhead Shuttle stops. This nature-filled neighborhood has trees in every direction and even has a park.

From my observations, I would highly consider Buckhead Forest a traditional neighborhood. Buckhead Forest fits into every part of my criteria of what constitutes a good neighborhood. I listed convenient location for people to walk to many places, interesting architecture and layout of homes so that people can interact with their neighbors, public/communal space where people can come to socialize, and just a good, comforting atmosphere for families to feel safe. Buckhead Forest fits into all of these characteristics. Though it is in the heart of Buckhead, the neighborhood has not been affected by the commercial development in the city.

There weren’t much of my criteria that I had to revise besides how this neighborhood is located in between such major roads and also right by GA-400, there may be a lot of noise from transportation entities. The community of Buckhead is very wealthy and luxurious so the houses in this neighborhood are also pretty pricey. Other than these revisions, I would still consider Buckhead Forest a very traditional neighborhood with an urban feel to it. It is the ideal neighborhood to live in.

Posted by: Sarah Chang

Saratoga, Buckhead, GA, by Nicki Meyer

The neighborhood I will be assessing is Saratoga, located in Buckhead, Georgia. It is located in a very nice area, off of Lenox Road. Most characteristics include a traditional type neighborhood. The housing is mainly brick with a lot of trees throughout the neighborhood. There is great use of public space and is very pedestrian friendly due to the sidewalks and the trails for jogging and walking. Family and friends make great use of the park. Also, small streams run through some of the backyards making everything very natural looking. 

My criteria was basically what this neighborhood is. I listed a convenient location, which this is. There are various restaurants nearby, including the mexican restaurant "Pancho's," you can go to, not requiring a car. Also a major shopping mall is located extremely close by, Lenox Square mall. Another characteristic I felt was important was a public area that was useful. There is a park right in the middle of Saratoga that comes to great use by the residents. A nice and quiet neighborhood is something to look for and Saratoga was exactly that. 

Some of my criteria I had to change was about the housing. Though this is mostly a traditional neighborhood, the houses were "cookie cutters". There was little variation in the housing and and the ranges were not as much as what I originally had listed. This seemed to be the only major sprawl characteristic.

Metropolitan Atlanta

Ahmed Ismail

Atlanta is one of the two major cities in the South East region of the United States, the other being Miami, Florida. Being so, it attracts many tourists every year who come to see its cultural roots as it also serves as the growth place of many hip hop artists.

The blog I have focused on, named inDECATUR, is solely about a town very close to the city of Atlanta named Decatur, Georgia. It is home to about 18,000 Georgians and is just to the west of I-285 and a few miles east I-75 and I-85 in the heart of metropolitan Atlanta. The blog boasts that Decatur is a "bustling, Inside The Perimeter (I-285) community retaining a friendly, small town atmosphere." And that it's "in demand as a place to live, work, shop, eat, drink. and play."

From having been there myself on none other than labor day of this year, I see that all of the claims i the previous statement is true. There were people out and about all over the place. They were either sitting in one of the many local restaurants that had outdoor seating, walking their dogs, strolling around in the little parks or riding their bikes around. It is also a very friendly neightborhood where conversation is bound to strike up.

From some of the many posts that are put up on this blog daily, I can see that it is mostly announcements that go on during the week and events will take place with open invitations for all of its citizens. I also read a post about a teacher that worked in Decatur High School that told of an activity she did with her class that day that she thought was creative and effective. I think it just shows the life of the community it self when you see a post such as this one. That a high school teacher would share something so simple to express why she thinks it's a positive thing and that it would be worth sharing with all others who live in this community.

It is people like this teacher, or like the journalist named Bob Fallstrom, who wrote an article about how if Decatur were to have a sports team, they would be named the Commodores, after Stephen Decatur, who achieved his fame as a commodore in the Navy.


The editor of this blog seems to feel that he needs to have someplace where the open and very much social community of Decatur can have a place to post community related ideas, stories, events, and anything that would somehow affect or put a smile on a citizen's face. I would think that the main thing the writers of this blog and all of its posters hope to accomplish is to commune and have a place to share their lives as it relates to their community.


The very first thing that is seen on the blog is the picture of the city hall, a place where the whole town has access to very easily. Their city hall is actually very available by Atlanta's MARTA transportation system since their is a station just a few feet from the city hall, where I have personally visited.


Posted by: Ahmed Ismail

The Metro Atlanta Area

Atlanta is the capitol and most populous city in the state of Georgia. Due to its’ mild climate, great location, easy transportation, and many leisure activities; people from all over the nation, as well as immigrants from other countries, have flocked to this beautiful city.

“Drive a Faster Car” is a blog about Atlanta and describing its’ life from culture, entertainment, music and independent art. This blog focuses not only on Atlanta but the metro Atlanta area as well. This blog, however, is different from other blogs I’ve read in that it seems to be a published blog. Like a magazine, this blog has an editor-in-chief, several contributing writers, and an intern. This website also takes submissions of articles, reviews, artwork and photographs that people would like to contribute for publication. Rather than having one writer and one opinion, “Drive a Faster Car” has multiple writers with multiple opinions, as well as the people’s opinions.

With well over 5 million people in the Atlanta area, the writers try to engage a diversity of readers. The writers post announcements of events that may be occurring nearby, from the Red Bull Soapbox Derby at Piedmont Park which is great for families to attend to Fabolous at Greenbriar Mall which young adults or teens would love. They also write about music artists of interest just to share a little something about themselves and maybe people may take liking to. The blog also includes links to other websites to find information about museums, restaurants, or even politics.

The writers for this blog are very informative and give a lot of information to let their readers know what is going on in Atlanta. There are many descriptive explanations as to explain when and where certain events are happening; for example, the posting on which roads were shutdown for the soapbox race. Multimedia used include pictures/posters, videos, and many sources like links and “you may also like” such links for additional information or alternatives for information.

This blog was created for the people in Atlanta to have somewhere to go to find information on about current events happening or where to find specific things in the Atlanta area. Like discussed in class, the local news or the “Atlanta Journal Constitution” do talk about events and news in Atlanta but also focus on many other topics that do not even concern Georgia. This blog helps to break that habit and focus primarily on metro Atlanta. The writers hope to accomplish a place for citizens living in the area to use the website as a nice resource.

Posted by: Sarah Chang

Blog About Atlanta by Nicki Meyer

The blog i read was "It's great to be "in Decatur" Georgia." It is about a small town roughly six miles from Atlanta, GA. Building restrictions keep major skyscrapers out of Decatur, leaving its tallest buildings only reaching six stories high. The small town atmosphere completely contradicts the city, known as the nation's fifth largest, only a few miles away.

This blog gives the reader a sense of a quiet, small, friendly town with plenty of shops, schools, and restaurants. The focus is directed on Decatur, Georgia and all it has to offer, though its population is no more than 18,000 people. Numerous legal firms have gone through here due to Decatur's County Courthouse being one of its major buildings. The writer makes it known that it is a very friendly environment with plenty to do.

The tone of this blog is very informative, and casual. It gives a lot of information about the town and is very descriptive. The multimedia helps give a clear description of Decatur. Visuals are used by pictures that show sites of the town as well as a map. Written media is obviously used with the informative writing and descriptions of the town. Electronic media is used because it can be accessed online. Pictures give the reader a sense of nonverbal media.

This topic of Decatur Georgia was to give some basic, positive information about a small, quiet town not far away from one of America's largest cities. It is written about in a positive way, as well as very descriptive. The writer accomplishes their purpose by giving the town of Decatur a good, detailed description to those who have never heard of or seen it before. It seems to be a small, pleasant escape from a huge, wild city.