Although metro Atlanta right now has done a decent job attracting people, Atlanta's fastest growing population are children. With the suburban-style policies that the conservative leadership in the state currently has in place, will we be bleeding population when these children become adults? Or will the city of Atlanta itself be the only attractor? Probably so on both counts, and that is a serious problem for our metro area.
The reason is because with a few exceptions the conservative leadership outside of the city has focused on roads and suburban style development, bucking ideas like light rail and high density hip urban development tied together with parks, transit, and trails. These are not the kinds of plans that will attract young people twenty years from now.
Let's look at the youth culture. Whereas the 30-somethings may have been typified as children being more into video games than their predecessors, the youth culture today can be typified as being more into social media, more into community. That kind of culture will likely pervade into their adult years as well. They will want a sense of community, a sense of place, with culture. Not a poster-stamp community that looks good on a Real Estate marketing sheet, but one that is vibrant that they can see themselves thriving in, and having children exposed to diversity and culture. Developers are already taking notice, and it is already changing the face of development. However, without planning in place from officials to promote this, then developers will be building islands that aren't tied together. Metro Atlanta will probably fall behind the other large metro areas.
The metro may find itself once again behind the times after so much effort to get out of the funk, being dragged down by leaders from yesteryear that knew how to get us out of the funk of the 70s/80s but didn't know how to take things to the next level. In some ways, we are a metro area that has grown in spite of our leadership, instead of because of it. It's time our leadership realize they need to have a strategy change to keep the metro area growing and attracting people and jobs, to ultimately keep the land value increasing and bring in more tax dollars without raising the mill rate, maybe decreasing it.
The leadership may have done a decent job keeping costs down for businesses in order to attract jobs, however even that has its limits. Atlanta is no bargain, has gotten expensive, and is getting overly congested. That doesn't spell doom, however the growth policy needs to change. Bargain-hunters will go elsewhere like Columbia, S.C., Dallas, TX and Winston-Salem, N.C. Anti-tax policies mis-labeled as "Growth policies" will start having diminishing returns. Failure to come up with a transit plan that could pass a referendum shows the leadership fails to identify the true needs, and to really stoke peoples' imagination of the great metro we could become. It was time five years ago to build upon our assets and take things to the next level.
It's not time to throw the baby out with the bathwater. There should still be a heavy focus on jobs, since that is needed to attract young people as well. Especially, the right type of jobs to attract more qualified people. However, it is time to mix "Smart growth" policies in, focused on building a sense of community and place, and build the community that our children twenty years from now will be looking for.
Areas like Alpharetta, Roswell, Kennessaw, John's Creek are on the path towards being unattractive to young people twenty years from now. They may become communities of retirees and empty-nesters, but they are going to be too boring for young professionals. On the other hand, Atlanta the city and some of the inner suburbs on the North perimeter are doing great things to build a foundation for the kind of hip social development that young people will be looking for and that will attract the right kind of development. I would consider it very early stages, but the blueprint is already in place. Light rail such as the new line down Auburn Ave that will encourage the right kind of growth, to fully inclusive rental development in "Midtown West", Atlantic Station, West Village, midtown and Little Five Points, Smyrna Market Village however what are currently islands need to be tied together with a sense of cohesive community, pedestrian improvements, transit, bike trails, parks, work/play districts and other aspects that will seem "hip" to young professionals. We need this throughout the metro area, not just in pockets.
Then there's cities like Smyrna, Sandy Springs, Dunwoody, Doraville and Decatur which seem to be moving in the right direction, but have a long way to go.
I believe that the rest of the metro area can learn to be proactive, see what is working in Atlanta and other inner areas of the metro, and start tying things together better.
That may mean we need to spend a little money. It's unavoidable.