We attended a "neighborhood meeting" last night that was not as bad as they can be. By neighborhood, I mean "midtown", which is a pretty large place, about 50,000 residents and double that who work here. There were about 200 people attending, the folks had various displays set up one could peruse before the talking part. The "news" according to them is quite good. A key item is they bought 4 acres of land that had been sitting idle where a tall condo building was supposed to be built years ago and have nice plans for a park in the middle of the place.
For us, it's interesting, about half a mile distant, but a 200 acre park for us is across the street. I do think this new park will be a kind of focal point, I hope, for employees etc. They showed a lot of historical photos, meaning 1980s, of the area, and the change is pretty dramatic. The meeting was in the Four Seasons hotel/condos which they explained was built by a Swedish billionaire back when as part of a massive set of plans, he went bust and this was the only building built, but others have filled in over time.
The area is still growing but not at the frenetic pace of 2-3 years ago, some properties cleared for new construction are still dormant, I think the market was over built. He talked about student housing, which for me used to mean "dorms", but these new places are fancy as heck, and now house 10,000 students up from zero a few years back. We're across the freeway from Tech and not far from GaState. A new one is starting near the Varsity now.
So, good news, except for traffic, and their plans continue to be to take road lanes away to build bike lands and landscaped "islands". My wife is not amused. I don't drive enough to really care.
