Come fire, crippling recession, or global pandemic, you can’t keep Atlanta down for long.
Year after year, the city continues to emerge more prominently as the economic, cultural, and entertainment capital of the Southeast, and with that comes extraordinary change to the built environment. Pandemic or not, you can feel Atlanta continue to grow, from West End’s leafy streets and Summerhill’s rising mini-city to the multi-crane mega-builds across Midtown and Buckhead.
At Urbanize Atlanta, we’re here for it, beginning today. Our goal is to chronicle the commercial real estate development and urban planning decisions that impact all of our lives, for better or worse.
In some ways, the site will echo a previous news source (rhymes with “blurbed a Fanta”) I was fortunate enough to edit for seven years, beginning just as Atlanta’s record-breaking construction boom took off in 2012. In some ways, it won’t. In all ways, Urbanize Atlanta will continuously evolve, aiming to improve coverage and the overall reader experience. (Yes, some sweet-ass maps are in the works.)
Urbanize, which launched in Los Angeles in 2015, was born from a passion for cities and how they evolve through urban planning. Atlanta's is the first new city site to launch. Expect more from cities around the country soon, where other former Curbed editors have signed on.
With this site, I’d like to encourage passionate Atlantans from comment sections of old to come back and have your voices heard again. (Looking at you, Mr. Jim, Antilon, Wholesome Thoughts, ATL Native, Reynoldstown, and even Kurbee.) People in high places—crazy as it sounds—were paying attention to your street-level insights and feverish takes on gutter colors, misbehaving e-scooters, the scourge of gridlock, and so many other topics.
Of course, Atlanta’s CRE boomtimes aren’t without social complications and stark economic disparities that leave people behind. We’re here to keep an eye on those topics as well, be it gentrification, affordable housing, questionable zoning policies, rabid NIMBYism, hurdles faced by public transit, or a cost of living that’s becoming nothing short of exclusionary.
We hope for a more inclusive, functional future for this metropolis of six million people and counting. But we’ll just have to see how that goes.
To longtime Atlantans and recent arrivals, welcome aboard. We’re fascinated by this great city, and we’re eager to see what's next. Thank you for your interest.
Sincerely,
Josh Green
Editor, Urbanize Atlanta
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Urbanize Atlanta Facebook is here; Twitter here for all updates; UA's Twitter coming soon.
Email: josh.green@urbanize.city
(Photo courtesy of Conner Christie, @conner042505)
