Atlanta, Georgia, known as the “poster child of sprawl,” may not be the first place you think of when imagining a forward-thinking city, however, an innovative project aims to combat the issue of congestion as Atlanta’s population doubles in the next fifteen years and turn Atlanta into a walkable and bikeable city. Like New York City’s High Line or Chicago’s 606, 22 miles of disused railroad tracks are to be transformed into a greenway loop by 2030, open to pedestrians and cyclists. This so-called “BeltLine,” proposed in 2001, is a breakthrough in the way that urban planners approach cities — in terms of sustainability, livability, and coherency.
According to the United Nations, more than half of the world’s population resides in urban areas, and this number is predicted to rise to two-thirds by 2050. This presents an unprecedented opportunity for 21st-century metropolises to lessen the Western world’s dependence on fossil fuels and provide citizens with alternatives such as bicycling, public transit and walking, following Atlanta’s example. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that one-seventh of global greenhouse gas emissions are caused by transportation and that number is also rising. By pursuing options that use less energy and cleaner forms of it, we will be able to not only prevent further global warming but also to improve the quality of life in cities by reducing traffic and smog.
In this beat I will explore the complex challenge of implementing innovative transportation policy reforms as well as sparking a cultural paradigm shift towards the goal of sustainable city-living. How do the obstacles facing the global South in this regard differ from those in the global North? What approaches are working well and in which areas could improvements be made? What roles will technology and lifestyle play in the future to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions? In order to answer these questions, I will examine individual cities as case studies to formulate a hopeful yet critical view of the current state as well as the future of urban transportation.
