The Different Faces of New Urbanism

The Different Faces of New Urbanism

8 years ago 0 0 2471

The Different Faces of New Urbanism If you read the newspaper or business journals, you would assume everyone wants to live in the heart of a big city, in a small apartment in a mixed-use development, located near a transit station and high-rise office building—you get the picture. While the desire for interaction and less car time are the driving forces behind this trend, it fails to address the desire of many for space, affordability and convenience to good dining, entertainment and employment—all attributes of the suburbs. Can these seemingly contradictory trends be satisfied? As discussed in my post “Atlanta’s Edge Cities Develop City Centers,” the answer is yes. Let’s explore some more. City = Cluster of Small Cities? When referring to a city like Atlanta, we can no longer look at it as one homogeneous political entity. Instead, Atlanta is a cluster of smaller cities and unincorporated neighborhoods with distinct

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Why Mentoring is Key to Future Success

8 years ago 0 1 3653

Wondering how to make a marked investment in your industry’s future? Ensure young people have an interest in your business and give them early access to keys for success. It is my experience most college students interested in real estate want to be developers. After all, developers are the driving force for the industry. But few really understand what the development business entails, and they know little about other wonderful opportunities the real estate industry offers. Colleges are not fully preparing these aspiring real estate professionals for this industry. While many graduate with adequate subject knowledge, they’re unsure which discipline to pursue or for which niche they are best suited. Mentoring 101: Start with Coffee That’s where we—established industry players—need to step in and help out. Helping these young people start on the right foot can be as simple as meeting for coffee and asking the following questions: Why do

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How Public-Private Relationships in Real Estate Development Are Growing

8 years ago 0 0 2902

My previous blog post considered why public-private relationships in real estate development are being more widely utilized and are creating more investment opportunities. Let’s continue that discussion… THE WHY Here’s a quick recap of why I think this is happening: Emergence of high density-mixed use product Growing project size Need for public financing (both for community impact developments and supporting infrastructure) While the public sector has become more involved in the actual developments, it also has offered financial incentives to private interest to encourage certain types of developments in certain places. I’ll call these THE WHAT Community improvement districts (CIDs) Tax allocation districts (TADs) Special public interest districts (SPIs) Opportunity Zones Bond financing Community Improvement Districts (CIDs) In Community Improvement Districts (CIDs), jurisdictions allow businesses in established districts to self-tax in order to make internal improvements. Often property owners pay a fee to participate in the district, and district members,

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Atlanta’s Edge Cities Develop New City Centers

8 years ago 0 2 9564

I recently heard famed urbanist Richard Florida speak about the rise of the creative class. He claims creative people want to be around other creative people—to live closer together, to spend less time in their cars and to partake in convenient amenities. This trend is manifesting itself in urban areas in the form of high-density, mixed-use developments. It is also happening in the suburbs of metropolitan areas, which have grown up around what were once fairly rural downtowns. In the Atlanta metropolitan area, several edge cities are working hard to create an attractive “sense of place”. Also, several suburban communities have incorporated to take advantage of this trend. Let’s look at a few examples in Atlanta. Living on the Edge You probably already know their names. Dunwoody, Sandy Springs, Roswell and Alpharetta all rank as Atlanta’s edge cities. Let’s start with Sandy Springs as I have been a resident there

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