[Tuckerman]

The discussion on Buckhead as suburban is rather amusing. Approaching Buckhead from the North on 400 clearly gives the appearance of a large city downtown and would appear like many newer city centers in the US. Actually parts of the Buckhead area have a grid layout, particularly around the Buckhead developments between Peachtree and Piedmont Roads. As a whole, the area is rapidly becoming more dense between these two arteries. If anything the Atlanta "downtown" is a becoming a continual line of urban development from Sweet Auburn to the Perimeter with Peachtree St. as the spine connecting this, aided by the MARTA line to North Point. The short gap from the so-called Downtown to Midtown is now filling up with numerous high rises and a major node centers around Peachtree and 14th Streets. The next node is in Buckhead at Paces Ferry, then another at Lennox and another at Perimeter. Current plans to develop a very urban high street area at the Dunwoody MARTA area represent this spinal CBD development. More traditional suburban sprawl is found throughout the metro area including many areas close to this urban spine such as the Candler Park area and the mansion area of western Buckhead.

Atlanta is a good example where traditional ideas of suburban-urban begin to fall apart and have conceptual problems that cannot be overcome by sticking with outdated models of urban development.