Home and small music studios are the lifeblood of the Atlanta music scene. Recent violence in city neighborhoods has given rise to an ordinance to eliminate studios from residential areas. While an updated regulatory scheme may be necessary, the proposed Atlanta ordinance is a step in the wrong direction.
The case lets surface the fundamental problems we have in addressing quality housing for all people. At a time when affordable housing shortages are increasingly widespread, the Georgia Supreme Court’s decision should prompt us to address a past wrong. We can start by encouraging the private development of affordable housing in the same we encourage the private development of other important land uses, like conservation and agriculture.
We’ll likely see an increase in the number of poorer suburban communities. While Cobb and North Fulton will still have enclaves of wealthier residents, they will increasingly become the destination of lower-income individuals when they are priced out of the walkable Atlanta area. While quality-of-life is an issue even for wealthier residents in auto-centric communities, it is much more of a problem for their poorer residents. Try getting to the grocery store or your job when you don’t have a car and your community doesn’t support sidewalks or alternative transportation. While sitting in traffic on the way to work is stressful, having no transportation options to safely get to that place of work is arguably more stressful.
Removing zoning to a larger regional authority would undoubtedly be met with fierce political opposition, though it’s likely just what the doctor ordered for many metro areas to grow in more organized and reasonable manners. Making counties and cities compete among each other when we all freely travel between jurisdictions on a daily basis makes little sense. The bureaucratic inconsistencies and infrastructural headaches that ensue degrade our comprehensive regional planning efforts while cultivating a fractured political atmosphere and an overall distrust of one another.
Density doesn’t have to be a bad word. Allowing more people to live in strategic and desirable areas in closer proximity to one another doesn’t necessarily mean turning all parts of the region into Manhattan. While we aren’t talking about San Francisco or New York levels of density, we are talking about raising the density levels in certain parts of the region to something a little less Mayberry and a little more DC or Seattle.
Overall, 23% of metro Atlanta area residents live in one of the major metro Atlanta cities. Excluding the major cities from all the counties results in Gwinnett County, without Peachtree Corners, having the largest share of the area’s population at 19%. It also makes Atlanta the fourth largest jurisdiction in the area and vaults Cobb to the number two position.
Look no further than almost any film produced or set during that time period. While Taxi Driver and Blade Runner are less subtle in their portrayal of the city as a place of terror, even films such as Ghostbusters, Back to the Future II, and Woody Allen’s cache during that era can’t help but show the city in poor form. Certainly cities back then had many charms, but there really is no avoiding the fact that they were largely in a free fall, a decline that society assumed to be perpetual.
Well a lot has changed over the past 20 years.
If the government has to pay out thousands or tens of thousands of dollars in attorneys fees for behavior it cannot predict then we are wasting tax money. Sure the individual taxpayer wins, but the rest of the taxpayers lose. We need an honest system, but penalizing the government for acting in good-faith may not be the best answer. If a jury or judge finds a valuation to be excessive, the value should be reduced and any taxes paid should be refunded. Forcing the government to deplete its resources by paying attorneys fees for acting in a reasonable manner hurts all taxpayers and does little to correct bad behavior.
Can We Drop the Media Narrative of Cities Being in Decline?
People Should Just Give Up on North America
A Notorious Asylum’s Haunting Encounter With a Strange Trespassing Law
Georgia’s Conservation Measures Prove Pivotal in the Water Wars
It’s Likely Earth’s Six Warmest Years on Record Are the Last Six Years
Remembering the Time Andrew Jackson Decided to Ignore the Supreme Court In the Name of Georgia’s Right to Cherokee Land
You Don’t Own That Parking Spot in Front of Your House
The Latest Setback for Rails-to-Trails is Courtesy of the US Supreme Court
When is a City Not a City?
Citing the Need for More Coffee Shops, Cities Back Plan to Seize Private Property
