Atlanta Blog Assesment

Moving onto our next blog assignment, I begin by evaluating the Urban Hiking Atlanta Blog. The blog's original purpose is to entail the current development of the Atlanta Beltline. The beltline is 25 year project (3 years into) transforming a rail quarter around the city into a 22 mile loop of transit with 33 miles of trails and additional 1200 acres of park space. Eli Dickerson and others had a vision to change the way Atlanta travels by transforming empty Atlanta sites into this new beltline. Dickerson and the blog are not trying to receive any donations or steal into the cities tax dollars, but rather sway the minds of Atlanta's public to support this ongoing project to try to decrease pollution and fall into their new way of transportation. Dickerson is trying to save the city from what Suburban Nation calls "Sprawl." If he wasn't, then why would he put so much emphasis into a 25 year project? 

And finally, the blog draws its audience not by just the facts, but numerous pictures in order not to tell but show the audience what the beltline will look like. The emotional appeal is used by the blog to demonstrate the need for a new transportation system in the city of Atlanta.

-Zac Kannan

We are group 3.

Just so we remember.

Where I live

It looks like we all live in suburbs. I live in the town of Farragut (which is pretty much a suburb) which is about 20 miles from Knoxville, TN. Everybody has to use a car to get to anywhere in Farragut. As a result there can be some bad traffic on some of the major roads. It has only been within the last couple of years that I have noticed how much the town is dominated by subdivisions. I would say that until recently my suburb was actually pretty nice with some somewhat old subdivisions (30-40 years old) that were planned out well. Unfortunately, recent development has changed that. Much of the land around me is or was farmland so not much clearing was required originally, but there isn't much of it anymore so developers grab whatever they can get. I have seen whole river sides cleared of trees only to be replaced by roofs. I would say the worst example of this type of developing that I have seen was when almost all of a wetland was cleared and filled in for a shopping center. Despite what has been done in my suburb, I still love my home and the land around it. My house has been there for about 27 years and was not built as part of a subdivision so it isn't an example of the cookie cutter type houses that are built now. All in all, my town has become an example of sprawl according to both "Suburban Nation" and "Blueprint America".
-Evan Lohrey

Like Zac, I also grew up in a suburb. In my town (Malvern, PA), you usually did have to drive almost everywhere you went. The roads were very busy and were not very pedestrian friendly. However, if you wanted to get into the city for cheesesteaks (Pat's or Gino's), a Phillies game (who are currently in frist place), or the Reading Terminal for the best chocolate chip cookies ever, you could take the SEPTA train in. If someone really wanted to, s/he could walk to the train station. It was only about a mile or two away from where I lived, but if I was at a friend's house in "downtown" Malvern, we could easily walk to the station within a couple blocks. A ticket to ride the train is about $6. I think that's one way though. The train is a fantastic way to avoid the Schuylkill (Route 76) which is without a doubt, always jammed up. I'm glad to be out of Philly traffic and into discovering how bad Atlanta traffic is. Hopefully it's not as bad as Philly.

Until later,

Kelly

Well Evan, this is also my first time writing in a blog also. I grew up in a very suburban area, living right next to my high school. Besides the walk to school, a car was necessary for everything including food, soccer practice, and haircuts. I enjoyed my neighborhood greatly though. But I can always see myself living in a small town in the mountains outside of sprawl. I lived in Snellville, which used to be a couple of dirt roads in about 1990, the year i was born. Now Gwinnett County has become a congested mess with traffic at every intersection. There are hardly any pedestrians anywhere. Whenever i go to Athens, Downtown Atlanta, or anywhere else similar to those style towns it is so different to me. I am not use to see bikers or crosswalks at every intersection. But in a recent attempt to build up our community's active life, parks have beginning to be built all around me. I think its a great idea. The communities all around me though were well off families. I typically seem to see that trend in similar communities. And the less well off families I saw more in old fashion neighborhoods and towns.
See you later,
Zac

Videos

It looks like the post did what I thought it would do, so I am starting the videos post. I might post a video later today.

-Evan

General Posts

This is my first time being part of making a blog. Just to start things off, I have started this post so that we can talk about general things (as the title suggests). I don't know if that can be done in a post but I will see after I post this. I think that we should probably also have some posts for other things like video, news, etc. (if this blog works the way I think it does.

See you later,
Evan