[atlantaguy]

Originally Posted by ATL_J

What do you consider the suburban fringe? Just curious.

To add some color to your comments. The Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) has ten central counties that belong to it. I'd consider this the "core" of the MSA and it comprises 34.1% of the land area of the MSA. From 2000-10 it captured 66.3% of the regions growth, however, from 2010-2015 it captured 80.8% of that growth. The inner, most "urban counties", of Cobb, DeKalb, Fulton, and Gwinnett captured 38.1% of all growth from 2000-2010, but 65.3% of all growth from 2010-2015. To wrap Atlanta into this, the city itself captured 0.4% of all growth from 2000-2010 and 10.3% of all growth from 2010-2015 for a land / capture ratio of 6.74.

The majority of suburban development occurring right now is "infill" as people in the metro seek downtown / town center environments. That isn't to say they're moving to the heart of the city, but historic downtowns like Duluth, Norcross, Roswell, Alpharetta, etc. are seeing a surge in popularity and you're seeing large faux-town centers like Avalon & Halycon in Forsyth catering to that desire. Not to imply there isn't your typical suburban cul-de-sac neighborhoods being built, but most construction activity is located in these more relatively dense, suburban areas.

I'm also not sure I agree with your housing comment. 3 miles from Downtown Atlanta doesn't take you very far and comprises most of the urban, intown neighborhoods, where the vast majority of new construction is townhomes and large multifamily projects. Atlanta does have a lot of established, leafy neighborhoods, but for those not built out, new construction in these neighborhoods does not function nor is similar to construction 30 miles out. Maybe I misunderstood the comment?

Anyways, always interesting to hear outside perspective.

It's best to just ignore Crawford, especially when he starts spouting off anything remotely related to Atlanta.

He has proven time after time for many years that he has absolutely no clue what he is talking about, but unfortunately that has never stopped him.