Atlanta Metblogs

I was searching through some of the blogs linked from Dr. Hoefer's blog and decided to check out Atlanta Metblogs to see what it had to offer.

The purpose of the blog is to inform its readers about anything and everything that is happening in Atlanta, be it politics, sports, local events, or just places of interest. The design is rather simple and easy to follow, with postings on the left hand side and links to a photo gallery, recent comments, author pages, blog categories, and twitter updates.

The most recent blogs include all of the main topics the blog focuses on.
The first being a posting about the Atlanta Hawks and how good they are doing this season and encourages its readers to go cheer them on at their next game this Wednesday. This posting has a basic style, only using hyperlinks to other sites without any pictures, but the style of the author's writing makes it easy to read without having pictures to look at.
The second posting uses pictures, hyperlinks to sites and other blogs, and humor to promote the latest exhibit at the Georgia Aquarium, "Planet Shark."
The next posting was rather short, but to the point; it was about the Mattress Factory studio tour with links to photo galleries and another blog and a picture in the posting showcasing a couple of paintings.
I could relate to the next posting as the author was asking for help from readers to blog once a week to update their site. I guess even bigtime bloggers have trouble keeping a weekly blog...
The rest of the postings included topics of the recent mayoral race and its turnout, concerts, and restaurants.

The style of writing and the content of these postings made this blog interesting to read and to see all the happenings going around in Atlanta. From sports to sharks to art, this blog uses well-written postings, hyperlinks and pictures to get information to the public about all things Atlanta.


-Thomas Rowe

President Peterson says so, that's why.

Playing catch up, yet again.

Week of October 26, 2009.

President Peterson: Get Off Campus and Get to Know the Rest of Atlanta.

President Peterson brings up a good point. This is Atlanta, not only the largest city in Georgia, but the largest in the Southeastern United States. Of course there is something to do for everyone. 

Are you a sports enthusiast? Atlanta is home to MLB's Atlanta Braves, NHL's Atlanta Thrashers, NFL's Atlanta Falcons, and NBA's Atlanta Hawks. That is four major league sports right in our backyard! Tech students, use that discount. We are students and are, therefore, prime targets for discounts and free tickets. Take advantage of that!

Don't like sports? That's fine. Atlanta is full of history and culture. Within walking distance or a short MARTA ride, you can access Margaret Mitchell's home, the High Museum of Art, the World of Coke, the Fox Theater. The possibilities are endless. Atlanta is even hosting the world famous Rockettes!

No matter what your interests are, Atlanta has something for you. There is something to do at all hours of the day (and night). So get out there, pursue something that you like, and try something you have never tried before. Bud Peterson says so.

-Marie Singleton

Freedom Ship, The New Community? - Shaun

For last friday
This revolutionary idea may become the new city. The idea would help create close "urban" neighborhoods that would solve the sprawling of houses. Many people have already invested in the idea and many sequences of designs have been constructed. This ship would be the worlds largest floating community. The ship would allow for the residents to both work, play, and live on
the ship.

When the ship is finally finished it would be a mile long and offer many things that would better a community. First and best of all the ship would be completely energy self sufficient. It would include parks and playgrounds, apartments, businesses, schools, casinos and shipping malls.

The city would help create a sense of community without vehicles, but rather a mass transit line from one end of the ship to another. There will be wide walkways and even plants to give a sense of real earth. The ship will continually sail across the world instead of docking, instead the city will be supplied by air.
This idea chould help move several small sprawling areas onto a single area. With the invention of ships like these, the earths habitats could be reinvented without human interference.

Freedom Ship

Placecasting blog - Marie Singleton

Week of Oct 19, 2009.

Placecasting blog.

This is probably the most interesting blog I have come across so far.

The placecasting blog brings together the audio world and the visual world. The blog is kept u

p by a man named Jeff Jones from Saint Paul, Minnesota. A radio producer and avid traveler, Jones has come up with a revolutionary way to explore the world using one of our most powerful senses (hearing) and readily accessible technology. In this day and age, most have access to a cell phone and to the internet. Jones uses these to his advantage. 

His most recent post is about an audio tour of Mississippi River in Wisconsin. The audio tour lays out information about cities, sites, and landscape along the River. 

He also mentions in an earlier post about something called a Cell Phone Tour. The Central Park Conservancy in New York City has created a unique type of tour. Almost everyone has a cell phone nowadays, so why not create a tour of Central Park using this technology? Throughout the park, they have posted signs with a phone number to call and an extension specifically for that sign. When a tourist (or resident, for the matter) calls the number, they are directed to a pre-recorded message. The message consists of actors reading a script about the area around the sign, particularly the buildings and flora. The message gives suggestions on how to enjoy the Park, in order to avoid the normal tourist traps.

Jones gives yet another form of exploration. This is particularly helpful to those who

 are unable to visit a place at that certain time. He mentions using Google Earth to explore a region. He used the service to survey Yosemite National Park and Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. He denotes that, although it is much more fulfilling to see these places in person, Google Earth provides a close second. There are 3D images of buildings and structures in the park.

Jones mentions ways to visit, even if a person is unable to

 physically visit the site. Today, technology is so

 readily accessible, why not use to explore the natural Earth?

Drifting Through The Grift - Marie Singleton

So, I've got some making up to do. 

Week of Oct 12, 2009.

Drifting Through The Grift

You can view the blog here.

The author of this blog is using his form of media to convey his thoughts on the forthcoming mayoral elections of Atlanta. 

He is particularly critical of Republican Party. He is not necessarily sympathetic to the Democrats, but seems to favor them slightly over the Republicans. And it is not all Republicans that he has a problem with. Moreover, he seems to have a problem with the Republicans who are hypocritical. 

On September 17, he writes, "What I have put my finger on is the belief that although there are some Democrats speaking stupidly, there are far fewer Republicans speaking reasonably. Both should do better."

He splits the Republicans into two groups - Land of Nodding Know-nothingness and Land of Reasonable Republicans. He believes that a Republican should be able to work with and compromise with the Democrats without attempting to force an opinion on someone else. 

The author uses humor and satire in his posts in order to bring about change in his readers' minds. He loses respect for one particular candidate after her statement of the desire to use eminent domain to take poorly cared for property away from property owners. He compares the candidates for the mayoral position in a way that makes them seem like horses to be bet on in a race. He ranks them in order of who he believes would be best for the community, based on political opinions and past commentary. 

It is particularly interesting to hear someone's opinion on politics from a blog. Often, humor and sarcasm are difficult to convey electronically. However, this author seems to achieve that and bring a questioning thought into a reader's mind whereas they may have not previously thought about a political candidate's remarks.

Bay Line Park (streetsblog)

(This is late for last Friday after figuring out what we were supposed to do for it)

To view the blog, you can go here. The plan is a visionary one that could revolutionize the way old engineering systems can be reused. The east span of the Bay Bridge is completely unusable due to new laws saying it is not stable enough. The plan is to change the bridge to a park that hovers over the water. The innovative design would recycle the unused bridge and help create a better sense of community. The mixed use bridge would create a small community on the water.
Ronald Rael has developed a plan that would preserve the existing cantilever and truss section of the Bay Bridge and transform the span into a park and mixed-use development.

The upper deck of the bridge would include about 2 miles of bicycle and pedestrian pathways, as well as tennis courts, a climbing wall, and 15 acres for planting gardens and growing crops. The lower level mixed-use development would include a number of pre-fabricated residential units, swimming pools, retail development and cultural amenities, such as museums and an open-air amphitheater. This idea will retrofit America and help with discoveries of other ways to "green" the community.

inDECATUR

Whereas the Decatur Metro blog seems to focus on the problems in the Decatur area, inDECATUR mostly celebrates the community of Decatur by posting about different events, including concerts, local store news and fundraisers, but also posts about some troubling issues in the area.

inDECATUR shows itself as an example of how a community should interact and connect with each other by posting stories or local events that bring citizens together to relax and enjoy themselves, like where you can see a big turnout for the Blue Sky Concert and having one every a great time. This blog also shows how connected the community is with each other by posting about a restaurant getting a new sign or a new paint job which shows that the citizens take notice and care about the appearance of their family-run restaurants. Another way that inDECATUR shows the strong community of the city is through the posts about fundraisers from the city wide SkaterAid to the Decatur High School marching band's yard sale so that everyone can come out and support these organizations like a good community should.

However, Decatur still has to worry about crime and other violence despite being a nice community-based city. Earlier this week, two DeKalb county policemen arrested a man who was threatening a young girl with rape. So while this story shows potential danger in Decatur, it also shows how concerned and active its policeforce is in protecting those in need.

Even the blog itself shows how a community should be by using pictures and video to share with everyone and by allowing comments to be added to the blogs to show interaction between citizens and an exchange of ideas and viewpoints on certain stories.

-Thomas Rowe

Decatur Metro

Shaun Roberts

The reader can tell from the writers posts on the importance of topics within the neighborhood. They focus on the several deep problems within the area. Some of these topics may not directly correlate to the city itself, but rather the world as a whole, but in some way have something to do with the problems of the city. Decatur Metro talks about in one posting about the banned books through history. They celebrate the banned books to show that no literature should be banned. This implies that reading is important and should not be destroyed or banned just because of some context. These books, though vulgar in some way, are important because they teach a lesson worth learning. The blog has pictures on the post to help give a visual of the idea but doesnt seem to use the same media types for many other blog posts.

The writer also posts about the safety in certain neighborhoods. Even though the focus is on really small topics, such as the the stealing of a car, the main point is the overall safety of the neighborhood. As said before, they focus on the larger problems that could harm a neighborhood, while showing what a good neighborhood should be. The residents are instructed to be safe and help with the safety of the other citizens.

On a larger scale, the writer also talks about the energy problem that America is facing. It talks about how areas that are not well circulated with water will not be able to receive as much renewable energy from the sun. The demand of energy today has a harsh effect on the planet and individual neighborhoods to be more precise. They writer instructs that even though the burden would be less, renewable energy does not come without its defects.

Urban Sprawl and Miles Driven Daily By Teenagers

Sorry for the whole password messing up thing...I have no idea what happened with that.

Anyways, here is the (late...)blog from last week...

Urban Sprawl and Miles Driven Daily By Teenagers in the United States

 

American Journal of Preventative Medicine, March 2008

Matthew J. Trowbridge, Noreen C. MacDonald

 

Link: http://www.sciencedirect.com.www.library.gatech.edu:2048/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VHT-4RSS76V-5&_user=655052&_coverDate=03%2F31%2F2008&_rdoc=1&_fmt=full&_orig=search&_cdi=6075&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000034078&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=655052&md5=3d6d87bc926e48e0e568bee9d2c95d49#sec3

 

This article explored the affects of teenagers driving on urban sprawl. It suggests that teens driving to and from school have a significant impact on the traffic that accompanies urban sprawl. It is believed that sprawling areas require a teen to drive, which places them in high-risk situations, as opposed to traditional neighborhoods, in which it is easier for a teen to ride their bike, walk, or use public transportation. The conclusion is that the farther a teen must drive to get to necessary places, like school, the more likely a teen is to be put into a high-risk situation, and therefore, the more likely a teen is to get involved in a wreck.

-Marie Singleton

Is Sprawl Associated with a Widening Urban–Suburban Mortality Gap?

Journal of Urban Health
Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine

Abstract by Shaun Roberts

The link

http://gtsearch.library.gatech.edu/search/metasearch/record?group=000079&resultSet=000542&startRecord=6

leads from the Georgia Tech library and goes to the next link for where the article is

http://www.springerlink.com.www.library.gatech.edu:2048/content/w72228hw6n489l77/fulltext.html

The essay disputes the difference between the mortality rate of urban areas and suburban areas. The writer compares the national average and the average of Portland. Basically what is being stated is that there is a higher risk for death and disease in suburban areas and that the gap is spreading between them because there is not a way to contain the spread of sprawl. In Portland, that difference is slowly getting smaller because they are implementing smart ways to develop the land and prevent sprawl. Other findings discovered is that sprawling areas have older citizens who also make more money while the urban areas are filled with younger citizens. The writer uses many statistics and facts to support the topic on the difference in mortality rates between portland and other urban areas, and suburbia. The development showed that not only was it more healthy to live in urban areas instead of suburbia, but also that the gap in mortality rate had greatly increased and affected a wider variety of citizens.

My neighborhood is literally within walking distance. It is called Howell Station. 

Unlike Thomas's neighborhood, Howell Station qualifies for the definition of "traditional." The streets are quiet and not continuously riddled with traffic. It is a middle class neighborhood. Although the neighborhood has little in ways of sidewalks for pedestrians, it is safe to walk around. Near Howell Station is a place called Carver's Grocery.

 Carver's Grocery is a mom-and-pop store that serves homemade lunches. The Carvers get up every morning at 4:30 to cook for these people. Also within walking distance are at least three churches. As far as safety goes, there is a formal neighborhood watch in which the residents are highly active. Besides playing at home, there is a park called Knight Park close by. 

Here is a tennis court, basketball court, and playground. The neighborhood sponsors Halloween parades, Fourth of July picnics, and Earth Day clean-ups and BBQs. The neighbors also set up biweekly playdates for the younger children. The houses are all of varying styles, ranging from Georgian cottage architecture to shotgun style buildings. It is an old and historic neighborhood, having been built in the mid 1800s to early 1900s. It is almost a little entity unto itself in the sprawl that is Atlanta. 

Myrtle Street by Shaun Roberts

Unlike with Thomas' neighborhood, I wouldn't say this one is necessarily a product of sprawl, but a mix of the traditional neighborhood and suburbia.
The neighborhood shows many signs of being a great environment. Even though the area has many houses that could be almost considered cookie cutter, the overall feel of the place is what a neighborhood should be. The area isnt defined as serious sprawl because the streets still conform to a grid like map, houses are not terribly spaced, and there is not a lack of trees.

The first thing a person would notice when walking down the street is how many trees there are. The area is overpowered by the excessive amounts of trees compared to a normal sprawl area. There are streets that are still extremely wide for a neighborhood so it may not do a good job at slowing down traffic but since trees line the street, it does give a closer feel of the area. The remaining streets are fairly narrow and force people to slow down. The second thing that is eye popping is you notice that none of the houses have any garages. All the cars are parallel parked along the street, giving it an even more narrow feel.

As you walk along the sidewalk that is on both sides of the street, you begin to notice another thing that separates the area from sprawl, the fact that there are also apartments in the same area. There seems to be no distinction in the area. Lastly the area seems to be but a ten minute walk from Ponce de Leon Ave.

Being so close to a commercial area and having a mixed density housing area not dominated by the vehicle is a perfect environment. The area seemed to flooded with people walking their pets and with friendly people when i asked about how they feel about the neighborhood.

Fairmont & Dacula

The neighborhood that I chose for my topic is Fairmont on the Park, where I have lived for about a year or so after moving from Martin's Chapel. Fairmont is right outside the city of Dacula, Georgia, which is right next to Lawrenceville and about an hour's drive northeast from Atlanta.












Even though Fairmont is a lot like the sprawl in Martin's Chapel in terms of "cookie-cutter" houses, winding roads, trees bordering neighborhood, and numerous deadend cul-de-sacs, there is a large sense of community because it is so close to Dacula. While most of the residential housing in Dacula is suburban sprawl, Dacula itself has qualities that make it feel like the center of traditional neighborhood with shops, restaurants, grocery stores, churches, schools, parks, and government buildings. Dacula is very strong on tradition and community involvement through schools and churches, so there is always something going on. Also, when you leave Fairmont there is a park bordering the neighborhood, so even though within the neighborhood the only place to play is at the pool, there is plenty of green space for everyone at the park. If there is a center of community activity and interaction within walking distance of housing then this counteracts the sprawl of the nearby neighborhoods, like Fairmont, as long as there is a low number of such neighborhoods.

Although being a product of sprawl, Fairmont met most of my criteria for a "good" neighborhood, like pedestrian-friendly sidewalks/crosswalks, safety, sense of community, and low traffic, it did lack organized streets and a central focus of community activity, but that is where Dacula makes up for it. After writing down observation notes and comparing them to the criteria, I might note that as long as there are community like Dacula, within walking distance of the residential houses, then that neighborhood could be considered as having "good" growth.


Thomas Rowe

*photo from: http://fairmont-onthepark.com/

Bloglanta

The blog that I looked at is called Bloglanta which reports news concerning local Atlanta area neighborhoods ITP (inside the perimeter) about politics, new government or city policies, and stories that might have slipped by big-time news coverage but are important to Atlanta residents.

Through his postings, the blogger, Robert, introduces an article or news topic that affects the Atlanta area neighborhood residents, such as pan handling, vagrancy, transportation problems, and water shortage, and then offers his opinion and observations and sometimes adds a solution or asks the readers for their input. In fact, Robert seems to regularly get the readers to become active by linking to surveys targeted for Atlanta residents in his blog so that they can shape their community and have a voice in city policies including transportation planning, for example. Robert has an assertive, yet informative, tone that he uses to put out his ideas and opinions about the stories he reports on that reflect the needs of the residents of the Atlanta area rather than government authorities who just want a quick fix to a problem without thinking about a long term solution, shown in his posting about the vagrancy and pan handling problems.

While most of his posts are just text, Robert does include an occasional picture but mostly relies on hyperlinks to the news articles he writes about, wikipedia for definitions of terms, websites ranging from about politicians to neighborhoods, and surveys that the reader can explore more in depth on his/her own time or participate in if he/she chooses to do so.

The main reason I think that Robert and other bloggers like him focus their blogs and postings on their community is because they can make news stories that matter to the community readily available and can provide a place for the readers to communicate and share their opinions on the stories where they would not be able to otherwise. By having this open line of communication and exchange of ideas, the purpose of these blogs, what the authors want to achieve from them, is to bring the readers and residents of the community together so they can participate in happenings within their communities and can help build a stronger community by making the Atlanta area, in this case, an overall safer and more enjoyable place to live where the people can feel like they are part of strong and growing community.

-Thomas Rowe

Marie Singleton

Savannah is more of a community unto itself. While there are “suburban sprawl” neighborhoods, namely the newer ones like Southbridge, the neighborhood I grew up in was not. My neighborhood was a ten minute drive from the middle of downtown. I lived on one of the islands closest to the beach. My neighborhood was one of the oldest to be built on Wilmington Island, a place called Wilmington Park. My house, in particular, was built in the early 1940s – one of the first on the Island. Within a 10 minute bike ride from my house, I could access a community pool, a playground, basketball courts, tennis courts, three grocery stores, a local barbershop, a nail salon, and the elementary school. There wasn’t much else needed growing up. My friends were close enough that I could walk to their houses, or at the very least, ride my bike. Growing up, there were a lot of older people, but a boom of kids my age. My next door neighbor and I went from kindergarten through eighth grade together. We were constantly playing together. Eight of us kids. We roamed the neighborhood – and felt safe doing so.

This was my house:

View Larger Map

With growing up came the ability to venture further than the limiting walls of the neighborhood. Aside from Wilmington Park, I spent the majority of my time in downtown Savannah and Tybee Island. To begin with, Tybee Island is our beach. The locals run the island. The only major chain restaurant to set up camp – and actually thrive – was Arby’s. Other than that, local restaurants were the main attraction. You could walk down Butler Avenue and call almost everyone by name. Almost everyone in the Savannah/Tybee Island area is connected to another family you know, someway, somehow.

Downtown Savannah held the most importance to me. I went to a small, private, Catholic school in the middle of downtown, so we walked everywhere. Five, six, seven blocks was a short trip for us. The streets are lined with twenty-one public squares – green space open for all to use. These squares serve another purpose, though. They reduce the speed limit. In all my years in Savannah, I knew of two major accidents downtown. One in which the brakes locked up on a car and forced it into a square and another with a drunk driver. However, neither person was injured because the squares slowed the cars down. In downtown Savannah, townhomes are built right on the street and built around these squares which serve as almost a community yard. I worked downtown and walked everywhere. There were no chain restaurants. There were no big name department stores. Trolleys and horse-drawn are a very common site and a popular way for tourists to get around. You just don’t find these kinds of attributes in large cities and suburban sprawl. 

Sometimes, I wish Savannah was more sprawl like. It may have been safer than walking around downtown Savannah. There would have been more to do as a child. But what we did do when I was little, was to explore different neighborhoods and all the different styles of housing - from ranch to old plantation to Spanish to structuralist. It was cool to experience different kinds of architecture and not just one, uniform style of building.

Halifax North

The name's Shaun Roberts and I live in Evans Georgia. The Halifax neighborhood is extremely similar to Martin's Chapel Grove with the exception of a lost name identity crisis of course. The way the areas are set up is extremely familiar but they do vary on many key areas. The area also doesn't actually fit perfectly into the same prerequisites of any of the cities in Blueprint America. The Evans area is more like Portland than any other because of the restrictions placed upon the area with the growth of sprawl. But also like Denver where there are outlaying towns and neighborhoods outside the bypass of the city (Such as mine!). The area has extremely limited space because it is getting pushed from the east by Augusta, blocked from the north by the Savannah River and blocked from the south by Ft. Gordon. So the area is slowly building up and to the west.The Blueprint America documentary's main point was to try to prove that urban sprawl was bad, wasteful, doesn't allow for a community, and destroys the land. I believe that my community shows otherwise. I for one believe that urban sprawl is not necessarily bad per say but does need to be controlled. Evans exemplifies that need. My community for instance was created with the landscape in mind. All the houses have several trees and are created with the idea that if the houses dissipated the original layout of the land would still exist. The overall hillyness of the land has stayed in tact and they have constructed around the many ponds and the older or bigger groups of trees.

Many of the houses appear quite different than others as shown in the pictures(surprising i know...). Many hold the same elements such as the porch or the type of architectural style but rarely do you see a house that looks extremely similar to another. Many times they switch up the colors, reverse the layout, add another room, chance where the porch or driveway is located, and then make it out of a different material and by that time its a completely different house.

Going back to the way Martin's Chapel Grove is constructed, the two neighborhoods are extremely different because houses are farther apart and keep many trees around them compared to the land in Chapel Grove where every house looks the same and its flat with a thin line of trees protecting it from the main road.
I personally have had a good experience in my neighborhood. The lack of public sporting areas forces the kids in the neighborhood to either be in the street playing or at one of the local schools playing. Everyone is always sitting on their porches or riding by in their golf carts and seem to always be polite, stop and talk or even help out with you moving furniture. Even though statistically wise we are a very diverse group with ages anywhere from just out of college to in the upper 60's, everyone seems to get along quite well.

The Evans area has many bike paths, sidewalks, community areas and parks, and is exremely cautious where buildings are constructed to maximize space. and any major grocery store or convenience store or even local shopping area is at least within a bikes ride away, many even closer. Traffic is hardly a problem except the main Washington Road that comes from Augusta and links the two areas. Many of the other roads are less busy and so its not a problem to go around town on a walk or bike ride and enjoy the area with out worrying about the traffic flow.

Martin's Chapel Grove

My name is Thomas Rowe and I grew up in Lawrenceville, Georgia in a suburban sprawl based neighborhood, Martin's Chapel Grove (who exactly Martin is, is anybody's guess), with a similar layout to the photo on page 5 of Suburban Nation, with roads surrounding around a central block of houses with more houses running on both sides of the street with a couple of exits to leave the neighborhood.

My family moved into this neighborhood when it was just created about eight years or so ago, when the shape of the hilled landscape was clearly visible, but when more and more houses were built, those houses became our only view from the front of our house with the thin wall of trees behind us seperating our neighborhood from busy roads. Since the sloped landscape and small size of the neighborhood could not provide a recreational center with a pool or a tennis court, most of the children had to travel to the homes of others to play basketball in the street or have the occasional bike race down some of the hills.

The ranch-styled houses in that neighborhood were the definition of "cookie cutter" houses, every house looked like the one next to it which looked like the one next to it, with the exception of an extended porch every other house or an additional floor every twenty houses or so. The picture below (courtesy of Google Maps Street View) shows the house I used to live in to the far right and its copies within view.










Although my neighborhood was fairly diverse in terms of age and ethnicity most families shared a common income level but keep to themselves mostly. Of course the children were more outgoing and willing to walk house to house to interact with others, but the adults keep rather private lives except for the occasional chat with the neighbors while mowing the lawn, which lead to a sense of no deep community relationship that traditional neighborhoods foster.

This neighborhood was solely used for residential space and made the residents drive a good ten minutes away to a shopping center with a pizza place, dry cleaning, gas station, chinese restaurant, and a grocery store. The sidewalks ended as the neighborhood did so walking was never an option for leaving the neighborhood, and the busy roads and awkward intersections made biking anywhere near impossible. The diagram on page 23 of Suburban Nation illustrates the jist of this situation where a "collector" road attracts all the traffic making driving a necessity and the only feasible method of transportation to the distant shopping centers.

My neighborhood supports the idea of suburban sprawl as "bad" growth in terms of building lasting relationships and a strong sense of community, because if more neighborhoods like mine sprout up faster than traditional neighborhoods can develop, then more and more citizens would grow up without a closeness to their neighbors and miss out on a chance to form lasting community ties with one another which are lost in the seperation associated with sprawl. My neighborhood was livable but on an individual family stand point because only inside our house did we feel a sense of closeness but there were hardly any ties between the families in the neighborhood. One way to improve sprawl neighborhoods like mine to make them more livable would be to centralize neighborhood involvement through social events for all age groups to strengthen bonds to one another.