Mass Urban

“A Rapidly Sprawling Community Tries to Save Itself

By Kaid Benfield

Not long ago, Newton County, Georgia, was classic rural America: a few small towns, some historic buildings, and a lot of farming.  But the county has had the good (or bad, depending on your point of view) fortune to be 30 miles from the center of one of the world’s most rapidly expanding cities, Atlanta. And it is smack in the path of the tsunami of suburban sprawl that is emanating outward from the Georgia capital.

Consider some facts: in 1990, the county’s population was 41,808.  By 2010, it had more than doubled to 99,958. Looking to the future, even under a “low” growth scenario it will grow further to 159,700 by 2030, according to a county planning document; the more likely scenario puts the 2030 population at just over 200,000. And change conceivably could be even more dramatic than these predictions suggest: a series of excellent articles posted by Ruth Miller on CoLab Radio reports that the county’s current zoning would actually allow 350,000 people. (CoLab is the Community Innovators Lab sponsored by MIT.)

Newton County’s racial composition as of 2010 was 52 percent white, 41 percent black, 5 percent Latino. Transportation habits?  Commuting by walking, bicycle, and public transportation combined was 0.12 percent in 2000. 

These facts are daunting, to say the least, given the alarming prospect of disappearing countryside, mind-boggling traffic, and near-total loss of small-town life in Newton County’s near future under current trends and conditions. And they are compounded by the fact that this community has never before had to think about growth management or sustainability.

But the people of Newton County have risen to the occasion. The municipality now has an comprehensive economic development and growth management plan that, according to Miller, will direct growth “into five new planned compact communities [and] will put 88 percent of the future population on 30 percent of the county’s land. These communities will be walkable, with neighborhood schools and a mixture of uses.  The open space and working farms in the rest of the county would be preserved for future generations.” 

This ambitious new plan came about because of some remarkable leadership. One key catalyst has been The Center for Community Preservation and Planning, which is both a meeting space in the county seat of Covington and an organization facilitating discussion about the county’s future. The nonprofit Center, which is funded by private sources including The Arnold Fund, has become the physical and social catalyst for the planning process.”

Via: The Atlantic

Image:  courtesy of the Newton Economic Development Strategy