7 Comments on Not flower power — flower *symbol* power

Lauren on Fri, 12th Feb 2010 10:51 am


That’s because it was created by Heard Development – one of the many developers in this town striving to turn the Atlanta region into a suburban strip mall of “convenience” focused on massive chain stores and maintaining or increasing our use of automobiles to get anywhere. It boggles my mind that residents and policymakers in this region want to strip our communities of any sort of unique identity to replace them with something like this that looks like it could be Anywhere, U.S.A.

http://www.hearddevelopment.com/projects.html

Thankfully there are some individuals here who believe this is worth preventing and are willing to save our communities. Check out the story about how residents and community members preventing this type of development from taking over Little Five Points at this reading at A Capella Books tonight.

http://acappellabooks.com/ev_hartlejr.asp

Jack Stenger on Fri, 12th Feb 2010 12:24 pm


“Why? Why do we accept all of this drudgery?”

“Because we are cretins” would be my short answer. Your powers of observation are well-illustrated in that you see the absolute absurdity of putting a silly sunflower banner up in an effort to create a cheery sense of “fun” in the parking lagoon of a distressed schlocky strip-mail in Buckhead. All of these things represent the total victory of the automobile culture in Atlanta and the decimation of all other aspects of the streetscape (including pedestrian activity and human-scaled commerce …) The banner is some boneheaded attempt on some witless “marketing agent” to gin up some leasing activity. It’s as if to say: “We are cheerful! Fill one of our empty storefronts!” I think we – as a people – are cretins because our preference for cars is so absolute and our sensed “right” for ample parking is so unalienable that we can’t see these absurdities. We have eyes but we don’t see. That’s why we accept this drudgery (and this is why our children are bored/overweight …)

Tim on Sat, 13th Feb 2010 11:29 am


There are so many things I love about Atlanta…Piedmont Park, the bike trails, the prospect of a beltline, the sunshine, the airport that will virtually whisk you anywhere around the globe, the fact that it is still affordable compared to many of the prominent northeastern and western cities which allows an art culture to thrive here…and the trees! The City in the Forest. Unfortunately I still see the trees being hacked down like crazy for more strip office sub divisions in the city which has an impact on the air quality as well as on the psyche of the people who live here. But what are we supposed to do? Development is based on cost models that are still for the most part enviornmentally unsustainable and the government in this town just seems…I hate to say it….mentally ill equipped to deal with managing the neeeds of an emerging global city. I feel like we are treading a fine line…the city could move towards one of the more beautiful ones in the country and set an example for others or it could fall into the realms of an abyss and other cities, educators, etc. will look at it and say “Atlanta had such potential, and now look at it. Lets makes sure we don’t do what they did.”

Juliea on Sat, 13th Feb 2010 1:51 pm


From the sheer economic standpoint I have never understood why merchants don’t demand that parking be placed behind the shopping centers. Wouldn’t it be vastly better marketing to have your store up on the street where people can see it and get to it, rather than have it hidden behind a sea of cars in an asphalt parking lot?

The objections I’ve heard to this seem nonsensical. Some say, “We put parking up front so customers can get to the store more easily.” It seems to me they still have to walk the same distance from the car to the door whether they come in the front or the back. Others say there will be more crime if you put parking in the rear. I guess they’re assuming that someone sailing down Peachtree Street is going to witness an assault or break-in in the Brookwood Square lot and whip it into the lot and execute a heroic rescue.

The best example of a good strip shopping center is Selig’s Brookwood Square at 1745 Peachtree. That should be the required model for the city.

http://www.multimap.com/s/NBHnaqpS

Juliea on Sat, 13th Feb 2010 2:34 pm


Sorry, I meant to say the best example of a good strip center is Selig’s Brookwood Place at 1745 Peachtree.

Darin on Sat, 13th Feb 2010 3:46 pm


Well, this is Mr. Hatred-for-Surface-Parking talking, so obviously I can’t even look at the photo of that shopping center without getting angry. I understand the need for parking in a city that is so dominated, residence-wise, by detached houses and thusly heavy in car use. But it seems so ridiculous to not equally cater to pedestrian traffic in the center of the city.

Juliea, I appreciate that you admire the rear parking lot of the Brookwood shopping center, but as someone who lives nearby and walks there for groceries at Kroger I can tell you that the pedestrian experience of getting to and from that particular store is very frustrating. The sidewalk does not continue around to the entrance and pedestrians have to walk through a dangerous traffic area in the path of cars. I give it props for having a double decker parking lot at least, but I wouldn’t recommend it as an urban model.

Juliea on Sat, 13th Feb 2010 5:40 pm


Darin, thanks for the correction. I’ve only walked to that center twice and was not aware of the problem with getting to Kroger. Could this be fixed by modifying the sidewalk/driveway interface?

In any case, I only mention Brookwood Place because it strikes me as being so much better than any of the other modern day strip centers that come to mind. The old retail strips from the 1920s and 30s had storefronts pulled up the street and parking lots behind, although I will have to admit many of them have very tricky driveways, too!

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