ATL Urbanist

Darin Givens is co-founder of ThreadATL, an urbanism advocacy group. ThreadATL.org | [email protected]

[threadatl]

No shortage of good ideas: the rail-centric roots of the Atlanta Beltline

by Darin Givens | July 1, 2026

Atlanta has no shortage of good ideas, though we sometimes struggle with follow-through. Take this example: these quotes come from an excellent 1999 plan that recognized the need to pair future growth with high-capacity transit, moving us away from the car-centric model...

Belt Line - Atlanta: Design of Infrastructure as a Reflection of Public Policy by Ryan Austin Gravel December 1999

"The route(s) and stations will be designed to connect to MARTA stations on the north, south, east, west and Proctor Creek lines. Some stations will anticipate future lines extended from the city to suburban destinations. Some stations will include additional programs like retail spaces, parks or entire new mixed-use districts. For example, a station at Boulevard would include an electric bus shuttle to Zoo Atlanta..."

"It must be clear, however, that this is not a transportation study. It does not justify light rail transit according to current ridership projections, but proposes that if the redevelopable territory associated with the Belt Line is handled appropriately, future population and employment growth on those sites will support it..."

"The Belt Line should accomplish more than just an improved system of public transportation. It has the potential to change the way we look at Atlanta, how we understand our space within the city and within the region."

---

Hopefully we'll follow through with putting rail transit on the Atlanta Beltline at some point. 27 years after these thesis by Ryan Gravel, it still resonates as a great idea for shaping a more sustainable style of growth in the city.

[atlurbanist]

Perspective on a neighborhood name: Atlanta's South Downtown

Darin Givens | June 30, 2026

I'd like to address the criticisms many in Atlanta are making about the name South Downtown as the district gains media attention following extensive renovations. I don't want to dismiss the concerns -- I felt weird about "West Midtown" when it appeared -- but I do want to put the name in perspective.

[Note: many of today's neighborhood names were established in the 1970s as part of the development of Atlanta's NPU system; very few of them date to the earliest years of the city.]

The term South Downtown slowly emerged about 20 years ago to describe an area south of Five Points MARTA Station, north of Garnett Station, and east of Castleberry Hill, which was largely filled with empty buildings and parking lots. Some properties were being eyed for potential renovation and the place needed a descriptor.

What was here before the parking lots?

Above: a 1919 map showing the part of South Downtown near what is today's Garnett MARTA Station. This was a bustling commercial district for decades. During the White Flight and urban disinvestment of the 1950s-60s, along with booming suburban sprawl, many businesses moved out.

If you zoom in with Zillow, you'll see the original property lines around Garnett MARTA Station in Atlanta, before the properties were destroyed to make way for parking lots:

In 1984, there was a plan to brand this area as Government Walk because most of the occupied space was government buildings. The idea was to spend nearly $100 million on renovations, on both streets and buildings.

It didn't happen, though some smaller scale investments took place in preparation for the 1996 Olympics, and a couple of commercial buildings were converted to residential.

Yes, 'South Downtown' is jarring to many who are hearing it for the first time. And concerns about cultural erasure are always valid. But the area that the city officially defines as Downtown is enormous and has clearly distinct subdistricts in it. Naming them is good for wayfinding and for our sense of attachment to places.

On a personal note, I first encountered the area in the late 80s and early 90s as a musician/artist performing in rugged art spaces. It was shocking to see the disinvestment. Later, I was on the board of Eyedrum when it was in South Downtown in a spot that struggled to draw people in.

Bottom line: today's investments & renovations are a joy for me to see, especially given my experience with this place over the decades, and I hope the name South Downtown becomes a beacon for renewal.

Above: renovated buildings on Mitchell Street in South Downtown. This is the historic Hotel Row, where former hotels served passengers coming from the nearby Terminal Station, which was demolished in the 1970s. Luckily the hotel buildings remained, and they now serve as stores, offices and apartments, following renovation work by Atlanta Ventures, which owns much of the neighborhood.

[atlurbanist]

If you're looking for indoor activities while avoiding the extreme heat outside, I suggest reading the years worth of research about how compact, walkable communities can reduce car dependency, reduce energy use, and preserve regional green space -- all of which can mitigate climate change.

Which we've literally known about for decades. Not that I'm bitter (I'm totally bitter).

[atlurbanist]

The good news:

After this new residential project is built at Centennial Yards in Downtown Atlanta (plans have been filed with the City), these blocks will be filled with attractive architecture and active spaces. It'll be nicer to walk around in the heart of the city, and that's a win for everyone.

Also, a rep from Centennial Yards tells me there will be an affordable component, with details to come.

This is coming to the vacant lot in between Mitchell St, MLK Dr, and the Richard Russell federal building.

The less good news:

The parking ratios are too high for a Downtown project, IMO, and bike parking is too low.

The parking breakdown is...

RETAIL – 61,990 SF

155 SPACES (2.5 SPACES / 1,000 SF)

RESIDENTIAL - 279 UNITS

446 SPACES

1 BEDROOM (140 UNITS)

154 SPACES (1.1 SPACES / UNIT)

2 OR MORE BEDROOMS (139 UNITS)

292 SPACES (2.1 SPACES / UNIT)

BICYCLE PARKING 66* SPACES

Could CIM be convinced to share some of that parking capacity with developments outside the Gulch and reduce the number of spaces dedicated to this one build?

Could Atlanta be convinced to lower the maximum-allowed number of parking spaces for Downtown developments, and require more bike parking? (Note: Councilmember Jason Dozier did get a win in 2022 with lowering maximums a bit; IMO they could be even lower in Downtown.)

Lots to ponder. Lots of work to be done. For now, enjoy the renderings and imagine that nicer streetscape of the future.

--

CORRECTION

A previous edit of this post said that there would be no affordable housing in this project, and in a roundabout way I blamed it on the GA ban on rent control. I removed that. I was wrong about the lack of rent control being at fault, per Dan Immergluck.

And according to Centennial Yards...

"There will be affordable housing we are still planning the details for the property."

Wow! That's big news, and I'm eager to learn more.

[atlantathecity]

This was a heartwarming sight: I walked several blocks of West Peachtree Street today (a little after 5pm) and saw a constant stream of cyclists and scooter riders using the new bike lane! To my eyes, an actual network of quality bike lanes is taking shape in Midtown little by little.

What's your experience, cyclists? Is a quality network emerging in Midtown?

[atlurbanist]

I'm very grateful to Atlanta City Council for officially approving the new requirement for pedestrian walkways this week!

As the Atlanta Business Chronicle reports...

-----

Atlanta City Council passed an ordinance on June 15 to explicitly require temporary pedestrian routes for construction and excavation projects. The routes could be erected using the existing sidewalk and adjacent lanes, and they would have to comply with Americans with Disabilities Act guidelines.

Councilmember Kelsea Bond introduced the ordinance after hearing from Old Fourth Ward resident Darin Givens about the lack of pedestrian access along Pine Street. Atlanta Housing is working with a development team to build senior apartments in the area as part of the Civic Center redevelopment.

"My argument was that all pedestrians deserve this level of safety, regardless of whether or not it's a busy sidewalk," said Givens, the co-founder of urbanism advocacy group ThreadATL. "In fact, some of the less busy sidewalks are on the most dangerous streets where cars drive fast and where accommodations for pedestrians are needed the most."

-----

NOTE: As Councilmember Kelsea Bond notes, and as a City lawyer explained to me, there was technically already a requirement for these pedestrian paths. But the language was weak enough that DOT staff were able to argue that they could ignore the requirement if they felt pedestrian traffic was low. Thus the need for a new ordinance with stronger language.

My opinion: if we had true champions for great pedestrian infrastructure at the top of the DOT -- guiding and inspiring staff members -- then folks at the City wouldn't be looking for loopholes for dodging requirements for pedestrian paths. They'd be looking for opportunities to make them great. In which case stronger language wouldn't be needed.

[atlurbanist]

In case you're wondering where the rail goes. It goes here.

[atlantathecity]

There are a lot of impressive "before and after" views in Tech Square. This one may seem minor but it always catches my attention. The street feels so wonderfully different with this parking lot replaced by a tall building (with a coffee place at the bottom). Biltmore Place at Spring Street.

[atlurbanist]

A cool new mapping tool reveals some issues with Complete Streets criteria

Darin Givens | June 3, 2026

A team from Georgia Tech has created a Complete Streets tracker where an interactive Atlanta map is used to explore how a block of street scores for completeness. Kudos to all involved. I'll give this project a big 'A' for the concept and for the excellent interactive presentation! As stated in their About section: "This project uses publicly available imagery and AI to automatically identify key street features such as sidewalks, bike lanes, and street parking. These features are translated into a compsite completeness score by assigning weights to each element."

But I find some of the resulting scores to be problematic and I wonder if some tweaks are needed to the way we think about Complete Streets, a concept which defines a paradigm shift away from traditional car-centric roadways and towards streets that are more inclusive, multimodal public spaces.

The criteria for this project -- "How Complete are Your City’s Streets?" --weighs street design elements (like sidewalks) highly, and weighs active-use destinations (like stores) low. Check it out here:

https://gt-cura.github.io/complete_streets_web/

One problem I spotted is that the desolate section of Ralph McGill Boulevard in front of the empty Civic Center gets a higher score than the block of Luckie Street in front of a streetcar stop in Downtown.

This stretch of McGill is what I would call a "car sewer" due to the number of car lanes and the lack of bike infrastructure or traffic-calming features.

Though certainly the sidewalks are decent on Ralph McGill, the block doesn't feel like part of that Complete Streets paradigm shift away from car-centric spaces.

Meanwhile, the lower-scoring block of Lukcie Street feels to me like a more welcoming for pedestrians.

This is the kind of place where I want to walk...where I feel welcome and valued. Also: there's a streetcar stop here! And a bakery! And lots of eyes on the street.

Personally, I would like to see active-use spaces like public libraries and public parks and stores included more highly in all Complete Streets criteria. If there's no place to walk to, a street seems incomplete to me.

And it's possible that I'm conflating the concept of a Complete Street with that of a Complete Neighborhood. I recognize that there's some value in looking solely at the roadway design when it comes to street engineering. But when that word " complete" gets added, particularly in the context of streets in the center of a major city, I can't help but raise my expectations.

[atlurbanist]

Public transit routes in Atlanta in 1967 versus 2026. I've roughly lined up the same area in both maps. The reduction in lines over the decades is significant.

Stuff you think about when coming back from a trip to European cities with excellent transit investments.

I've said it before many times and I'll keep saying it: MARTA's biggest need is a larger stream of operations funds. Without more of that, MARTA can't truly expand service. All they can do is shift the existing level of service around, making cuts in some areas in order to make gains elsewhere.

I don't have any solutions to offer, but I hope that people in leadership positions at MARTA, the State of GA, and elsewhere -- who are capable of creating solutions -- are working on it.

[atlurbanist]

The elevated manholes you see in ATL may be preventing sewage overflow

Darin Givens, May 27, 2026

Someone sent me a good question: "can you please tell me wtf these are? I see them often in wooden parts of the city. This one is near the Perkerson Park baseball fields, but they’re also all over Cascade Nature Preserve."

These are elevated manholes for the sewage system that runs all underneath the city.

Some of these are elevated because they're near creeks that can flood; the Cascade Nature Preserve, for instance, is built around South Utoy Creek, a known flood zone.

Here's a map from FEMA showing the Utoy Creek flood area designation.

(In Perkerson Park they may be elevated for other reasons; this does not appear to be a flood zone.)

In cases where sewer infrastructure is near flood zones, an elevated manhole will be required by the City to help prevent flood water from overwhelming the sewer system and causing gross things to happen.

Speaking of gross things...in the 19th-century, City planners used natural waterways (like creeks) as open sewers, lining their beds with pipes that carried both raw sewage and stormwater!

Then in the mid-1900s, a new problem for creeks emerged: impervious surfaces began to exacerbate flooding.

Concrete and pavement replaced much of the natural ground, meaning heavy rain could no longer soak into the earth. Instead, massive amounts of stormwater rushed into sewer pipes, overwhelming the system and dumping millions of gallons of untreated sewage mixed with stormwater directly into neighborhood parks and streams.

After a 1990's EPA lawsuit against the City for contaminated creeks, Atlanta increasingly turned to "green infrastructure" such as Historic Fourth Ward Park, pictured above. It acts as a massive retention vault capable of storing millions of gallons of stormwater. Rodney Cook Sr. Park in Vine City does the same, while also providing an attractive green space!

[atlurbanist]

Instead of "fixing Atlanta traffic" let's reduce our car dependency

Decades worth of studies show that Atlanta's best future is an urbanism that's more focused on walking, cycling, and riding transit.

By Darin Givens, 5/24/2026

Posts about Atlanta's traffic are often accompanied by images of cars backed up on the Downtown Connector. And while this is definitely a clear example of congestion, my fear is that people will look at this traffic and assume we can "fix" it by improving car flow, which is a strategy that's failed over and over.

Here's one recent post I found, from Everything Georgia:

Let's face it: politically & financially, there is zero chance the Downtown Connector will be expanded or double-decked. We've tried expanding it more and more over the last several decades and it hasn't worked. See this 1967 photo of the same view:

Decades worth of transportation research has concluded that simply expanding highway capacity is an inefficient way to address congestion. Adding new travel lanes leads to induced demand, where new traffic fills the added capacity, causing congestion to eventually return to pre-expansion levels.

In short, we can't solve this congestion by finding new ways to accommodate cars. We have to accommodate the people inside them in new ways.

The future of Atlanta's mobility has to be defined by a major reduction in our dependency on cars. If everyone moving to this city drives cars at the same rate as the existing population, that's a disaster.

We can reduce our car dependency through a combination of things, such as increasing the percentage of trips taken by transit, cycling, and walking; ensuring good access to transit/bike/ped infrastructure; and expanding our supply of pedestrian-oriented places -- while guaranteeing that they're affordable to people of all incomes.

As other urbanism writers have noted, the best transportation plan for a city is a great land-use plan. Atlanta needs to embrace that statement and truly understand what it means: reversing the urban planning trends that have shaped our entire urbanism into one that demands car trips.

In doing so, we'll have to confront the vast amounts of low-density sprawl in our region. Studies have found that people living in sprawling, disconnected, single-use suburbs drive significantly more miles daily compared to those in compact, mixed-use neighborhoods with good street connectivity, and that metropolitan Atlanta has particularly suffered from the effects of its sprawl.

Likewise, a recent Brookings report reported that while Metro Atlantans overall drive thousands of miles above the national average, residents in highly walkable, dense nodes (like those along the Atlanta Beltline) have significantly reduced their reliance on cars. This is the "best transportation plan is a good land use plan" effect in action.

Again, this walkable density needs to include strong affordability components so that the benefits are available to all income groups. Pedestrian oriented places should not only be affordable to the wealthy.

And so we're left with the reality that trying to fix car traffic by increasing car flow is a flawed idea that comes from a windshield perspective on the city. It's a warped perspective that we should let go of. Instead, let's embrace a new vision for the city's future that's informed by experiences outside of a car.

[atlurbanist]

Count me as a fan of this striking office tower, which still stands in Downtown Atlanta as Five Points Plaza (40 Marietta Street).

Many people have commented over the years that they don't like its appearance, but I think this building is cool, and pretty fascinating!

It's held up by an exoskeleton structure of concrete. There are no interior columns! In 1964 when it was completed, it was one of the tallest post-tensioned concrete buildings in the world.

We take PT concrete for granted now as a structure for towers (basically, it's concrete with metal bars inside that are tensioned after the concrete dries), but in the 1960s this material was still fairly new. One year after this tower opened, the St Louis Arch was heralded as being an important example of the use of PT concrete.

BTW, that lovely red brick building to the right is still standing today, it's just less lovely now. The facade has been covered with panels and the interior is now nothing but a data center, with another data center slated to be built behind it as part of the Gulch project.

Perhaps some day that brick will be uncovered and restored! One of the great interactions that concrete towers can have with the urbanism of a city is the contrast they provide against red brick buildings. Take that contrast away and much of the visual appeal is lost.

[atlurbanist]

Atlanta ranks 143rd in population density among U.S. cities & that’s not good. The common misperception that Atlanta has gotten ‘too dense’ is about cars, not people. What we’re too full of is car-centric places, generating a glut of car trips.

Years worth of studies point to this truth: If costly rail & bus rapid transit investments are to pay off, growth must be concentrated around transit stops. Funding priorities must favor of investments in areas that meet, or have credible plans to meet, minimum density thresholds.

We've got a choice to make as a city. Do we want a future Atlanta that's as car-dependent as the city has been for decades? Or do we want a future with better transit options, requiring density?

Remaining a lower-density city is a choice, and it comes with clear consequences. Read more about it here: https://daringivens.medium.com/atlanta-ranks-143rd-in-population-density-among-u-s-cities-thats-not-good-f9f9412caf0a

[atlurbanist]

Top: Bell Building last night; Bottom: same spot (and same person) 8 years ago, before the Bell was renovated.

Our son visited from college this weekend and I got to walk him around Downtown to see all the wonderful renovations of old buildings, plus the new construction on Auburn Avenue.

We lived just a couple of blocks away in the Healey Building for several years when he was little. He had to put up with his dad being obsessed about saving the Bell from demolition (and being interviewed by local reporters about it). But also we had a lot of fun being in a super walkable place near MARTA stations and small businesses.

The difference between then and now in Downtown is both exciting and sad.

It's exciting because of the wonderful things happening in South Downtown with blocks of old buildings being renovated, plus the progress on Auburn Avenue.

But now, many of the office buildings have emptied out, which in turn has hurt the customer flow for small businesses. The difference in the vibrancy of the place is stark.

My hope is that, a year or two from now, there will be a lot more people in Downtown 24/7 to lend the needed vibrancy.

And that "24/7" aspect is key. Downtown needs many, many new residential units so that people can live there and the walkable, transit-served streets. Events, hotels, and offices are great but they aren't enough. We have to fill in the empty spaces and erase the hollow feel that has plagued much of Downtown for too many hours of the week.

[atlurbanist]

Atlanta needs help from the state and federal government for expanding rail transit. Will we get it?

By Darin Givens | April 22, 2026

This is a beautiful image of what passenger-rail expansion could look like in Atlanta!

But that comment ("if the suburbs weren't evil") needs a rethink. At this point, it's hard to know where the fault is when it comes to the lack of MARTA expansion into the suburbs.

Is it really the fault of Cobb and Gwinnett voters and leaders? That was probably the case 10 years ago and earlier. But things are very different now due to the frustrating failure of rail in Clayton.

Clayton County -- which rejected MARTA in the 1970s -- finally joined the system several years ago so they could have bus service and, eventually, rail.

But MARTA wasn't able to build rail into the county. They gave it a try, but Norfolk Southern rejected sharing their Right of Way (ROW) with MARTA trains on the ground. And tunneling underground is massively expensive.

How expensive? Take a look at the costs of tunneling in the second graphic, from a 2019 article in Marketplace.

It's possible for MARTA to apply for federal money to help pay for this, but criteria has to be met to justify federal grants and there's a lot of competition for that money. Realistically, suburban expansion of rail will be above ground.

So instead of rail, Clayton is getting Bus Rapid Transit, which will require construction of lanes and reduction of road widths devoted to cars -- a political hurdle in itself. A major question we need to ask is: why didn't the state government get involved and try to broker a deal with Norfolk Southern, or else offer ROW along interstate highways for MARTA to build on?

That's exactly the kind of help that's needed.

The onus is now on the federal and state governments and freight rail companies to deliver some ROW for rail expansion into Atlanta suburbs, whether it's on the ground or elevated. I can't tell you what that cooperation looks like, but I know it has to happen.

Tunneling is only going to find funding in limited, critical circumstances, and it's not practical for suburban routes.

To expand rail transit on the ground, whether on freight corridors or on freeway ROW, we need help beyond just getting suburban voters on board. The situation is 'evil', no doubt. But there's a lot of blame to go around and much of it should go to leaders who haven't done the work of finding ROW for expansion.

Sources:

https://x.com/alanthefisher/status/2047010960284516387

https://www.marketplace.org/story/2019/04/11/subways-us-expensive-cost-comparison

[atlurbanist]

Atlanta in the 1940s and in 2026, with the same view in both aerial photos.

This is the center of the city before and after the interstate highways were built (and the highway ramps, and car-sewer roads leading to and from the ramps, and the construction of dozens of giant parking decks).

For years I've struggled to articulate something I feel as I enter Downtown from surrounding neighborhoods... it seems like I'm entering an island that's disconnected from the rest of Atlanta by a chasm of interstates on the northeast, east and south, plus a chasm of freight rail on the west.

Downtown has some *great* destinations and I hope everyone will visit Hotel Row on Mitchell Street in particular; it's very encouraging.

But I fear that because of Downtown's chasms, the vibrancy of it will always be compromised in some way -- until it achieves the kind of self-sufficient, 24/7 vibrancy that can only be gained through the construction of thousands of new housing units.

And when you look at the street grids in Downtown, heavy density makes sense.

Studies show that a high frequency of street intersections is associated with higher pedestrian activity. Meaning: this is an awesome place for walking. And when you consider the rich transit access here, it's clear that this is a perfect spot for living without a car (or car-light).

Anyway. That's my best stab at explaining what I feel. Build thousands of homes, please and thanks.