City Growth and the Viz Wall

For the first official week of Urban Environments, we went to the Viz Wall in the new Petit Science Building on campus. Dr.Hankins lead a presentation about city growth in the context of Atlanta. There has been an ongoing project going on for a while in which 1600 (?) old maps from Atlanta are being digitized and geo-coded to be overlaid onto current GoogleEarth maps, allowing users to view change over time. I find this stuff fascinating, and I am very excited for it to go public in the very near future! Here are some photos from the day:

Dr. Hankins showing us about map overlay

an old city map of Atlanta

graphing patterns of our city's expansion

looking at greenspace in Atlanta

Interesting things I learned about Atlanta's formation:
- Atlanta is one of very few cities in the world to be located nowhere near a body of water or major waterway. It instead grew from the intersection of two major railways.

the former Atlanta train station

- The early city was bisected by these rail lines, so they built numerous viaducts over the railroad tracks which are still in use today.


- Until the 1930's, Atlanta's major form of transportation was the streetcar, which has completely disappeared today. (Plans for new streetcars are in development.)

a view of a downtown Atlanta intersection in the 1920's

- A new "bisection" of neighborhoods arose with the implementation of the federal highway system starting in 1956.

a fascinating map of the interstate highway plan for Atlanta,
with current highway routes also shown

- Trends of urban renewal and slum clearance have greatly shaped Atlanta, and have destroyed many former neighborhoods with racial bias. For example, the section of town which now houses the Atlanta Civic Center was once a predominantly African-American neighborhood called Buttermilk Bottoms.

- Freedom Parkway was originally intended to be a major highway called I-485, extending to Stone Mountain, but it was rejected.

- Atlanta ranks far behind many other cities in terms of greenspace, but the Beltline project is working to expand that dramatically.

a Beltline trail in the works, below N Highland Avenue in Inman Park

- Fulton County Stadium was a purely speculative project bought with federal slum dollars, built on land not owned by the city, for a baseball team which had not yet been secured by purchase from Milwaukee.

a former baseball stadium located across Ponce de Leon Avenue
from the City Hall East building (now known as Ponce City Market)

Information about Contemporary Urbanization & Environmental Dynamics
from our text, Cities & Nature: (pg.65-95)
1) The three new trends in urban dynamics are:
    a: throughout the twentieth century, the world has become increasingly urban
    b: cities have continued to grow larger
    c: the creation of giant urban regions and megacities
2) In the megalopolis of the American northeast, the quantities of human use of materials have dramatically risen. The number of cars has almost quadrupled, releasing tons of exhaust. Water withdrawals have increased by over 150% in fifty years. The city of New York generates approximately 100,000 tons of garbage daily. The consequences of this are found in "increasing population growth in association with increased affluence and spiraling consumption producing a greater environmental footprint and increased strain on the natural systems that sustain and nurture life" (Short 73).
3) The five new forms characterizing cities now are:
    a: waterfront redevelopment
    b: superfund sites / brownfields
    c: sprawl
    d: the new industrial city
    e: shantytowns
Atlanta exhibits signs of sprawl and superfund sites / brownfields, and perhaps even shantytowns.