Combatting Urban and Suburban Sprawl in Atlanta

             After the construction of I-285, which encircles metropolitan Atlanta, was completed a number of malls sprung up alongside it; Southlake, North Lake, Cumberland, and the Perimeter Center. The Perimeter Center opened its doors in 1971 (Pendered 45), and was mainly known for its mall until the early 1990s when GA-400 was extended. This opened up a direct access route from Perimeter Center to Buckhead and I-85, and consequently Downtown and Midtown Atlanta. According to Pendered these malls were "designed as a driving destination, so no sidewalks were initially installed" (45). .
             The Perimeter Mall and its counterparts in other locations around I-285 were representative of drivable suburban locations and they extracted a significant toll on nearby residents. According to Juergensmeyer, the costs of sprawl are manifold and include economic, societal, sociological, and even personal costs (923). Economic costs include the financial burden of providing more than one infrastructure system or expensive extensions of existing infrastructure (924). Griffith posits that since sprawl increases the costs of public facilities that must be extended and expanded to serve spread-out and leapfrogged areas, providing public services to higher density developments generally costs less than serving low-density developments (567). Griffith illustrates this through a development which over a long-term period requires capital facilities for water, sewer, drainage, and transportation systems (567). .
             Societal costs include increased pollution, and destruction of recreational areas, green space, farmland, and environmental ecosystems. Yang and Lo illuminate the havoc that urban sprawl has wrought on the environment in Atlanta, with traffic congestion, water pollution, and rapid loss of valuable forest land (1777). A major concern in the article is the "degeneration of urban climate and air quality, particularly in regard to elevated temperature and increases in ozone and emissions of volatile organic compounds from increased automobile usage"" (1777).