If it takes a village to raise a child, how many villages does it take to raise a region?

By Dan Reuter

Chris Leinberger was in Atlanta on May 24^th to present a report completed by the Brookings Institute, Robert Charles Lesser (RCL) Co., HDR and Bleakly and Associates to document the economic potential and possible financing options associated with passenger rail from Atlanta to Macon.  Chris Leinberger worked as the President of RCL and ran its Atlanta office for 15 years.  In 1999, Chris famously described the Atlanta region as the “fastest growing human settlement in history”. 

The May 2010 passenger rail economic study provides an excellent overview of the potential to support passenger rail operations and provide new economic benefits to middle Georgia but it also could create unique development opportunities in many small towns and communities along the line.  Chris Leinberger has a related article in the June 2010 Atlantic Monthly on the history and potential of neighborhoods supported by rail transit.  See the following link: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/06/here-comes-the-neighborhood/8093

Chris Leinberger and Brookings Institute also produced a report in 2007 that compared the Atlanta region to the 29 largest metro areas in the U.S. in terms of the number of transit enabled, walkable urban locations.  The report ranked Atlanta 14^th with a whopping total of four (4) walkable urban places: Midtown, Atlantic Station, Decatur and Buckhead. 

18th Congress for New Urbanism comes to Atlanta

The 18^th Congress of New Urbanism (CNU) conference is being held at the Hilton hotel in downtown Atlanta this week (May 19 – 22). This national conference occurs in a different city annually, and is known as a leading venue for new urbanist education, collaboration, and networking. CNU members come from around the world to attend the conference and discuss development practices and public policies, learn from recent innovative work, and advance new initiatives and community changing strategies.

This conference was brought together by numerous Atlanta partners, such as the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, AARP, the Atlanta Regional Commission, Central Atlanta Progress, The Coca-Cola Company and Sustainable Cities Institute of The Home Depot Foundation in a collaborative effort to deal with how we can make our communities more economically healthy, sustainable, diverse and livable for people of all ages.