Overview

Looking at Atlanta, Georgia, one might conclude that the city’s notorious sprawl, degraded air quality, and tenuous water supply is a result of a lack of planning—particularly an absence of coordination at the regional level. In Atlanta Unbound, Carlton Wade Basmajian shows that Atlanta’s low-density urban form and its associated problems have been both highly coordinated and regionally planned. Basmajian’s shrewd analysis shows how regional policies spanned political boundaries and   framed local debates over several decades. He examines the role of the Atlanta Regional Commission’s planning deliberations that appear to have contributed to the urban sprawl that they were designed to control. Basmajian explores four cases—regional land development plans, water supply strategies, growth management policies, and transportation infrastructure programs—to provide a detailed account of the interactions between citizens, planners, regional commissions, state government, and federal agencies. In the process, Atlanta Unbound answers the question: Toward what end and for whom is Atlanta’s regional planning process working? In the series Urban Life, Landscape, and Policy, edited by Zane L. Miller, David Stradling, and Larry Bennett

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9781439909409

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Rendering the opaque and superficially bland language of regional planning into a comprehensible and compelling narrative would be a daunting task...[b]ut studies like this--which delve deeply into the internal working of plans and planning, without genuflecting to the assumptions of the participants--offer valuable insights. - Planning, December 2013 Basmajian challenges the notion that Atlanta's urban sprawl resulted from the failure of regional planning to coordinate decisions across political jurisdictions... Ultimately, Basmajian suggests that the explanation for Atlanta's built form is subtle, hidden between the cracks in the planning process, and only fully understood by studying its structure and the diverse interests of the individuals and agencies governing it...Summing Up: Recommended. - Choice

""Rendering the opaque and superficially bland language of regional planning into a comprehensible and compelling narrative would be a daunting task...[b]ut studies like this--which delve deeply into the internal working of plans and planning, without genuflecting to the assumptions of the participants--offer valuable insights."" - Planning, December 2013 ""Basmajian challenges the notion that Atlanta's urban sprawl resulted from the failure of regional planning to coordinate decisions across political jurisdictions... Ultimately, Basmajian suggests that the explanation for Atlanta's built form is subtle, hidden between the cracks in the planning process, and only fully understood by studying its structure and the diverse interests of the individuals and agencies governing it...Summing Up: Recommended."" - Choice

Rendering the opaque and superficially bland language of regional planning into a comprehensible and compelling narrative would be a daunting task...[b]ut studies like this--which delve deeply into the internal working of plans and planning, without genuflecting to the assumptions of the participants--offer valuable insights. --Planning, December 2013

Author Information

Carlton Wade Basmajian is an Assistant Professor of Community and Regional Planning at Iowa State University.

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