One person (me) has called the Congress for New Urbanism conference being in Atlanta “the Olympics of urban design,” because it brought a lot of attention on the city that we weren’t quite ready for. James Howard Kunstler – who I like because he is SUCH A DRAMA QUEEN – wrote about Atlanta in deeply unloving terms twice. David Byrne seemed confused by Downtown because he is a carpetbagger and interprets everything as racist in the South. Like he thought John Portman was creating some antebellum plantation experience by having black men work outside of the Marriott Marquis, to whisk you inside an all-white lobby? MAYBE THE ALL-WHITE LOBBY OF THE MARQUIS WAS A REFLECTION OF NEW URBANIST DEMOGRAPHICS, NOT ATLANTA, hmmm? This is the South; there are sooooo many things that are legitimately explicitly racist. So let’s not call what Maynard Jackson, Andy Young, and Bill Campbell did to give away the city to developers with grand plans as racist, David. There are so many other unflattering and more accurate words!
In addition, “The Urbanophile” (gag) tried to speculate that Atlanta’s days of prosperity are over. (Although Edward Glaeser – not a New Urbanist but an economist, and who I usually like because he is so reasonable – has written nice things about Atlanta but I kind of wonder how much is based on analysis or just his impressions.) And all you smug Decaturans, don’t think your little ‘burb was ignored by the critics!
I was expecting to see someone in Atlanta write some “You’re all wrong, and here’s why!” post or column, or at least “You’re all right, and here’s why!” but there wasn’t a word until everyone got their feelings hurt over Kunstler’s photo tour of Downtown and its accompanying commentary. Whatever! That was the one thing out of all these “what of Atlanta?” articles that was actually wholly accurate – those parts of Downtown are ridiculous.
Will someone who actually LIVES in Atlanta say anything to respond to America’s Greatest Urban Minds? Is it because until Richard Florida really talks about you, you’re not really on the map, even if you have already been declared the gayest city in America?
I hope at this point we’re all past knee-jerk defenses of Atlanta AND/OR past feeling totally demoralized when anyone says the city sucks. If you get really down when people say Atlanta totally blows, it is because you probably really believe that. First of all, at this point in time every city and state is totally battered and riddled with hollowed vacant buildings and broke governments and states that hate the urban parts and mass unemployment in whatever types of jobs bring value and whatever else the Great Recession hath wrought.
I read these articles cited above and some I agreed with, and some I thought were totally factually wrong, but if I was to explain what is so appealing to Atlanta in rebuttal to these brief visitors it would all be so subjective. And I don’t want to get all schmaltzy here and list things like, “the fresh fragrant air of Candler Park right after you emerge past the wretched stench of that sewer behind Mary Lin Elementary; the wonderful, intimate taco dinner on the patio of Las Margaritas that one time when my friend described how he was assaulted after Screen on the Green;” etc.
I also HATE when people compare Atlanta to other cities, even indirectly. Sometimes I get fired up and do this myself, and then I hate myself for it. I haven’t lived in that many other cities, so what do I really know? And if people want a city where they don’t have to have a car, or where they can be cooler than literally everyone else in the United States, or where they have more job opportunities in a particular industry, or where there are New England autumns, or where all the big policy problems are already solved, then Atlanta just isn’t going to be able to fulfill that need (even Decatur can’t provide a good Connecticut fall experience, as much as it tries). That’s cool! Do what you need to do! But when there’s some Atlanta vs. Denver, or Atlanta vs. whoever else debate, the cities just don’t usually line up enough to make any real comparisons. It becomes just subjective exercise in what one wants out of a city.
I think Atlanta is infinitely lovable, and I always will even if I get dragged out of here for some reason. The past couple of weekends I have experience just wonderful events and times where people young and old came together for things so specific to this city, and for once we were doing something that wasn’t trying to live up to some fake expectations.
I think the main thing, at this point, is for the city’s powers that be – the city government, the non-profits with a lot of clout, the developers, the big corporations who sponsor everything – to realize that something in the national economy has shifted dramatically and will never, ever be the same, and that they can’t look for answers in the same places. a) Many of those answers they got in the past were wrong, and really bad for the city; and b) there is so much young and innovative talent, but the established power doesn’t even begin to know how to find it or use it. It’s cool that Perkins + Will (pronounced “Perkins and Will”) is doing the BeltLine, but there are a lot of start-up and smaller firms that could handle other initiatives. Also, we have to stop thinking large-scale development (like headquarters or light rail or another Bank of America tower) and its accompanying empty promises and start thinking about smaller, piecemeal development, because that might be all there is money and civic energy for at this point.
If there has ever been a time to be excited and ready to DO things in a mediocre or full-on crappy American city, now is the time. Which is why if Atlanta ends up having laps run around it by low-self-esteem Rust Belt cities or sprawly Sun Belt cities that have gotten aggressive about innovative urban practices and development, plugging brain drain, and finding ways to use what they presently have then we deserve what we have coming to us, because Atlanta has (had?) a lot of advantages that I really hope haven’t already been squandered. A bunch of cool festivals and the promise of the BeltLine are good but not great enough, y’all! We need RESULTS! Eight months ago!
But honestly, the main reason I like Atlanta (that I don’t think Byrne or Kunstler will accept as an adequate response to their remarks) is that there is no way I will ever know as many people in another city as I do here. A social life will never come as easily as it does here! And that is why I shouldn’t speak ill of Atlanta and can never leave.
In other news, this vintage clip from The American Music Show has been cracking me up for the past couple of weeks.
Previously: Check your facts
Tags: big dreams, congress for new urbanism, david byrne, james howard kunstler, wonky dreams
Fantastic. Kuntsler seems like a jackass.
“MAYBE THE ALL-WHITE LOBBY OF THE MARQUIS WAS A REFLECTION OF NEW URBANIST DEMOGRAPHICS, NOT ATLANTA” -Ha
Loving this: “we have to stop thinking large-scale development (like headquarters or light rail or another Bank of America tower) and its accompanying empty promises and start thinking about smaller, piecemeal development, because that might be all there is money and civic energy for at this point.”
But I think that lack of energy is not the only reason to focus on smaller projects. I think smaller projects are good in themselves because they change the landscape of the city on a more delicate, human scale than the mega projects.
I love Atlanta too, but I took all the Kunstler/Byrne wackiness in a different way. I didn’t read those as smack downs on the city as a whole (even if they were intended to be), but as very valid criticisms of a section of downtown. I love seeing the old pics of downtown on the GSU online archives and the Atlanta Time Machine site — and the ones hanging on the walls of downtown businesses such as Corner Bakery, Sidebar and Reuben’s Deli.
To me, it’s sad to compare the streetscape of 1930′s Portman-zone downtown with what’s there now. I was hoping that the criticisms from things like Kunstler’s photo mock-tage (new word) would inspire Atlantans in a positive way to push for improvements in the downtown streetscape, because it’s just pitiful to hand such a historic part of the city’s center over to the conventioneers and tourists while locals turn their backs and ignore it.
I think I was more offended by Byrne, because he projected too much. Kunstler projects a LOT but that’s his schtick – so many people take Byrne so seriously these days, so I was disappointed with how lazy he was in writing that.
I agree that development needs to be people-focused now rather than project-focused. The last three years have taught us how flimsy and unsustainable the latter is. Well, the last 4 decades, really, if we’re just talking about Atlanta…
It saddens me to admit that I read a lot of the articles you linked and felt… pretty much nothing. I can’t muster the rage at leadership, either. I think I’m a card-carrying member of the hometown booster club, but at this point I have really lost the energy to mount the kind of defense you are calling for.
I spent basically a year of my life working in a little corner of Downtown trying to jump start some urban renewal. I was all gung-ho about the potential for Downtown. A few years removed, and I have very little hope for Downtown. There are definitely pockets of potential, but taken as a whole … it would take 30-50 years at least to turn the are into what we dream of, and that is if you could constrain demand elsewhere in the city. There is SO MUCH empty space, and SO MUCH bad design, and other areas of the city are SO MUCH more attractive from a development stand point.
So I quit trying to defend Downtown. I LOVE parts of Downtown, like Broad Street (of course, Broad Street is easy to love…). But trying to defend Downtown is a losing battle. Better to shift the argument about Atlanta’s strengths to its neighborhoods, which I’d put up against anyone’s. There is more traditional urban design in Virginia-Highlands, Little Five, East Atlanta, Midtown, and Inman Park than all of Downtown. We have actually done a decent job of preserving those areas.
I completely agree about the scale of projects that need to happen – but I also think you are right about the old economic drivers not working anymore. More than any urban design project or new development, Atlanta needs a new economic driver. Where are the jobs going to come from? No one knows. If we can get jobs, we can get people with income, which means the economics will work for new developments and transit projects to change the urban landscape. But without jobs, we’ll have a bunch of empty buildings.
Oh heavens, I hope this post didn’t come across as calling for a mounted defense! I just wanted to point out that people shouldn’t get disheartened by limp criticism, but there still needs to be a change in how Atlantans define what they want the city to be.
Re: David Byrne’s post…
The interior shot is of the Marriott, while the exterior shot below it is not the Marriott. It is the Westin in Los Angeles. 404 South Figueroa.
Thank you for articulating what I’ve been feeling for weeks now– especially after Byrne’s thoughtless comments.
Mayor Reeds recent hire of LA’s CFO and his comments of “Atlanta needs talent like we have never had” in the AJC yesterday, shows his vision for the city. Sanctuary city funded by federal welfare programs, there is alot of money in poverty.
Actually, Byrne, it’s WAY more offensive that you compare the staff to “living lawn jockeys”
I still don’t get why so many otherwise intelligent people were so eager to lick David Byrne’s bicycle seat after reading that article. He took one nugget of legitimate criticism (yes, we know that part of Downtown is wretched) and projected his own preconceived stereotypes and bogus assumptions on top of it.
I missed all this brouhaha but I’ll chime in anyway. (That’s what comments are for, right?) I’ve lived in Atlanta for 15 years-moved from uber-liberal Ann Arbor, MI. Since then I have arrived at the conclusion that Atlanta is a great place to live but kind of a lousy place to visit. Residents have excellent cultural events (theatre, music, dance, drama), a better-than-average art museum, some cool other musuem-type places (Cyclorama, Puppetry Arts, Fernbank, The Carlos, Botanical Gardens, etc). All this provides a rich environment and the opportunity for traveling shows, exhibits, etc to show up here for our enjoyment.
Out of town visitors, on the other hand, can get superior quality and volume of cultural experiences at most any other Atlanta-sized (or larger) city.
There are a couple of exceptions: the MLK Center and other civil rights era historical spots which will be enhanced by the The National Center for Civil and Human Rights. And food. We have fine dining restaurants that an ordinary person can actually go to.
I get around this when we have out of town visitors by focusing on the uniquely Atlanta things we have to offer. Like The Center for Puppetry Arts; MLK stuff, The Carter Center, Manuel’s Tavern and Bachanalia.
So, Byrne maybe needs to hang out with some resident Atlantans to see what we have to offer.
I’ve read a number of these recent articles. I suspect the range of the urban thinkers *need* Atlanta — Kuntsler, Byrne, and New Urbanists need to bash the city as an anti-example of their books/lectures/developments just as Wendell Cox, Randy O’Toole, and the anti-urbanites need Atlanta to justify their pro-sprawl agendas. Neither group is thinking particularly smartly about the city, nor does either group care about the welfare of our tax-paying, voting, living citizens. We should politely ask them all to bug off so that we can get back to creating a community.