Atlanta--A Donut

Imagine a donut—the round kind with a hole in the middle. That’s the Atlanta metro area. The city itself is in the hole. The suburbs are the “meat” around the hole and are formed around I-285. The owner of the campground at which I am staying says that there are 4.5 million people in the area. Half a million live in Atlanta proper—the hole in the donut—and the other 4 million live along the I-285 bypass that forms the ring.

Based upon the traffic I have seen in driving along I-75 (one of several spokes running from the center) and along I-285 to take Terry to her hotel, I would agree with him. There is a lot of traffic even in the middle of the day. What’s nice is the signage along the I-285 bypass. The hard signs tell you what exits are coming up but the electronic signs also tell you the approximate travel time to the next major exit. I assume these are updated from monitoring the speed of the current traffic so they are pretty accurate.

The campground I am at is off I-75 near Marietta to the northwest of the city and outside the ring. Terry is over on Dunwoody Road, also outside the ring but nearly due north of the city. All along the ring are malls and apartment complexes—often gated—that all look brand new. The manager/owner of the campground says there are only about half a million natives to the Atlanta area and the other 4 million are all transplants—usually from places up north—who have come to take advantage of the growth and opportunity available in the area. My question is which came first—the population growth or the opportunity? Did people move here because there were jobs available or did the jobs get here after the population grew to a point where the work force was available?

This is the same configuration that you see around Washington, DC with I-495 and the greater NY area with I-287. Interstate highways and the bypasses to major cities have contributed greatly to the sprawl evidenced around the country.