Atlanta Suburbs (Roswell, Alpharetta, Gainesville: fit in, move, design)

[Mountaineer_195]

Okay, so obviously Metro Atlanta is huge. With so many counties, including urban, rural, and suburban, many people have a different view of what "Atlanta" is, out side of the city of Atlanta of course.
So, like the big nerd I am, I want to see how you would classify some of the counties and cities.
I'm going to list cities, and I want you to classify them into the categories you think they should go
And I'm going to list counties and you classify those as well. If you wanna add some cities or counties to the list, be my guest

Cities: Decatur, Alpharetta, Roswell, Canton, Kennesaw, Acworth, Buford, Flowery Branch, Oakwood, Norcross, Newnan, Jasper, Woodstock, Covington, Conyers, and Gainesville
Counties: Cobb, Rockdale, Gwinnett, Pickens, Cherokee, Dawson, Forsyth, Hall, Meriwether, Lamar, Spaulding, Monroe, Barrow, Carroll.

Categorize the cites into inner suburbs, outer suburbs, exurbs, and miscellanous or another category
Categorize the counties into Urban core, inner metro, outer metro, or other category

my categorization
Inner suburbs: Decatur, Roswell, Alpharetta, Norcross, Conyers
Outer suburbs: Canton, Kennesaw, Acworth, Buford, Flowery Branch, Oakwood, Newnan, Covington, Woodstock
Exurbs: Gainesville
Don't Know: Jasper

Urban Core: Cobb, Gwinnett
Inner Metro: Cherokee, Rockdale
Outer Metro: Pickens, Dawson, Forsyth, Hall, Meriwether, Lamar, Spaulding, Monroe, Barrow, Carroll

[DJDeadParrot]

I'd move Flowery Branch and Oakwood into the exurbs category.

And, yeah, Cobb and Gwinnett are not 'urban core'.

[primaltech]

There's about 100 hundred counties of various degrees of suburbs, and the city of Atlanta, which is mostly a suburb of itself. The urban core is the collection of 50 parking decks in Downtown Atlanta.

[ShenardL]

Originally Posted by primaltech

There's about 100 hundred counties of various degrees of suburbs, and the city of Atlanta, which is mostly a suburb of itself. The urban core is the collection of 50 parking decks in Downtown Atlanta.

Did grin123 take over this account?

[Mountaineer_195]

Originally Posted by DJDeadParrot

I'd move Flowery Branch and Oakwood into the exurbs category.

And, yeah, Cobb and Gwinnett are not 'urban core'.

What about Jasper?

[primaltech]

Originally Posted by Mountaineer_195

What about Jasper?

Pickens County (Jasper) is a rural mountain town, but is considered part of the Atlanta area, crazily enough. 39 counties are considered part of the Atlanta combined statistical area, which is insane.

[JMatl]

Originally Posted by primaltech

Pickens County (Jasper) is a rural mountain town, but is considered part of the Atlanta area, crazily enough. 39 counties are considered part of the Atlanta combined statistical area, which is insane.

And the Atlanta MSA is designated by the Feds in DC, based on commuting patterns. We have no say with it whatsoever, this isn't something 'Atlanta' designed - but you already know this. Don't forget that Georgia is one of the 13 Original Colonies, and our Counties are tiny. The five core Counties with around 4 million could comfortably fit in Seattle's three core Counties of Snohomish, King & Pierce. There are plenty of tiny rural towns and villages included in your new Metro, definitely enough to give Atlanta a run for its money. North Bend or Vashon Island, anyone?

[primaltech]

Originally Posted by JMatl

And the Atlanta MSA is designated by the Feds in DC, based on commuting patterns. We have no say with it whatsoever, this isn't something 'Atlanta' designed - but you already know this. Don't forget that Georgia is one of the 13 Original Colonies, and our Counties are tiny. The five core Counties with around 4 million could comfortably fit in Seattle's three core Counties of Snohomish, King & Pierce. There are plenty of tiny rural towns and villages included in your new Metro, definitely enough to give Atlanta a run for its money. North Bend or Vashon Island, anyone?

I have no issue with rural towns or their commuting patterns, or including a large geographical area into the Combined Statistical Area or whatever. That's all normal.

I just think it's funny (or actually, problematic) that Georgia has so many counties, and also that they're all somehow very low density. Even inside the perimeter, is 90% low density suburban. And it's funny that super not dense Gwinnett, where I grew up, is the third most dense county in Georgia, only a little bit behind DeKalb and Cobb.

That said, the core 5 counties are all double the density of the 6th most dense county in the state, which is Forsyth.

OP is actually correct that the urban core is actually mostly outside the perimeter, in terms of density. Which is completely strange. There's obviously more mid to high density development in Atlanta's city core high-rise area (of course Downtown has no residential to speak of), but because OTP has a lot more low to mid density, it's actually more dense.

[primaltech]

This is 2010 data, but it gives you a good idea of where the density is:



There's only a few dots of red anywhere, but a sea of orange all the way to the outer edges of Cobb and Gwinnett.

Fulton would probably be the highest density county if not for the very rural South Fulton. And especially if Campbell and Milton counties still existed.

[katebozz]

I always thought we had 5 Core counties: Fulton, Cobb, Dekalb, Clayton, and Gwinnett. And then everything else was exburbs counties .