First off, I want to thank everyone: peers, professors, and design professionals. It was quite an experience, one that changed my perspective on the city of Atlanta. Originally, I'd had no interest or desire in ever working or living in the area. After seeing what some of the firms have to offer and the types of projects they work on, I feel myself gravitating a bit more toward a positive view of the area, with a little help from the night life downtown (midtown? I don't know) has to offer (we went to Opera first night).
Urban design and development was one of many studios in several of the firms we visited, which is a tremendous draw for me. Unfortunately, I feel I would be hard pressed to get a job in that type of studio considering my current background and the way the economy is. I've tried in
Greensboro, at the city planning department, to no avail. I couldn't even get an unpaid position as a volunteer and this was before the economy took a nose dive. Maybe I'll try
HUD next. Or perhaps I'll get more respect and attention with a professional graduate degree...
Anyway, back to Atlanta. The "downtown" that our hotel was in (hilton) was made up of parking decks and hotels. there was a single strip of restaurants and a mall hidden inside an office building. The
MARTA, was a few blocks away as were the aquarium and coca-cola museum. On a search for high priced coffee we found two Starbucks locations nearby, one being inside the Marriot hotel across from us which had recently been renovated by
TVSA (I think we should have shelled out the extra cash to stay at that place, it was pretty amazing). Eric Kaguyatan took the two hotel photos.
The first thing I noticed from my hotel window on the 22nd floor of the Hilton was that there were what seemed to be multiple CBD's (central business district, you know, the place where all the high rises are) in Atlanta. We seemed to be inside one and then there were others off in the distance.
This was further enforced by our itinerary which had us travel to other parts of the city several miles away from each other, by car. I didn't like this at all. It seemed we were miles away from concentrated public activity with no reasonable public transportation access to these areas [Downtown, Midtown, and Buckhead from the map handed to me by the concierge]...ie. we had to drive everywhere. We took the MARTA to Buckhead the last night we were there, making several stops along the way to investigate what was out there. The city was dead, no one was walking around, and there were few (closed) if any concentrated areas of activity (restaurants, night life, etc). Even when we got to Buckhead, it reminded me of a series of suburban strip malls to some extent.
We did eat at the Rockbottom Brewery that night, which was a blast as anyone could tell from the pictures taken.
I don't think I've ever been caught on camera laughing so hard before.
Food.
Drinks.
I went to Philadelphia in early January this year for the first time. The place was vibrant with life and activity, during all times of the day. The contrasting experiences prompted me to look up population statistics on Atlanta and Philadelphia for comparison. I found that Atlanta had a city population of a little over 500,000 while Philadelphia had a population over 1.5 million. Looking at the metro areas that were included with these cities the population numbers are nearly identical: ATL at 5.29 million (9th largest in the country) and Philly at 5.82 million (5th largest). For comparative purposes, the Piedmont Triad (Greensboro-Winston Salem-High Point) is 30th on the list at 1.5 million.
It appears as if the two cities developed in completely different ways: Atlanta being much more spread out where as Philadelphia was much more concentrated. I can even attest to this with my own personal experiences. You can walk to most places in Philadelphia (New York and Boston even, but not from personal experience) if you live in the city. Atlanta seems built around the automobile, as do the city's of Charlotte (NC) and Raleigh (NC). While writing this I've noticed that there is a clear distinction between the six cities mentioned. The three cities where you can walk and have access to good public transportation are in the Northeast United States while the three based on driving a car are in the Southeast United States. Funny how that goes.
Its probably unfair to compare these cities but it has raised some questions in my mind.
The first thing I noticed from my hotel window on the 22nd floor of the Hilton was that there were what seemed to be multiple CBD's (central business district, you know, the place where all the high rises are) in Atlanta. We seemed to be inside one and then there were others off in the distance.
This was further enforced by our itinerary which had us travel to other parts of the city several miles away from each other, by car. I didn't like this at all. It seemed we were miles away from concentrated public activity with no reasonable public transportation access to these areas [Downtown, Midtown, and Buckhead from the map handed to me by the concierge]...ie. we had to drive everywhere. We took the MARTA to Buckhead the last night we were there, making several stops along the way to investigate what was out there. The city was dead, no one was walking around, and there were few (closed) if any concentrated areas of activity (restaurants, night life, etc). Even when we got to Buckhead, it reminded me of a series of suburban strip malls to some extent. 
We did eat at the Rockbottom Brewery that night, which was a blast as anyone could tell from the pictures taken.
Drinks.
The rally itself was pretty exciting. Both Barack and Biden showed a fierceness that energized the crowd at some points. It reminded me of the quote "I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore!" 
After watching the debate the night before I imagined they would talk about much of what was already said but there was new material with an added mix of humor. The crowd responded well to the Democratic candidates. I believe the news put the total number of people at the rally around 20,000. I'd say thats a suprisingly substantial showing for Greensboro and brought hope in my heart for what was to come on November 4th.
"....We are fast approaching the time when we will have to think even further outside the box, remove our ideological blinders, and look directly at the problems of this century--and fashion our solutions so that they address the problems, not confirm our beliefs...."
