At the end of 2009, the area had 149,277 lots, down slightly from 149,782 in 2008, but above the 143,253 lots in 2007.

The inventory of lots kept rising because even has Atlanta’s housing market crashed, lots continued to be developed, said Eugene James, director of the Atlanta division of Metrostudy Inc., a residential real estate research firm.

“We were watching developments being reluctantly finished up,” James said.

In the 12 years Metrostudy has been recording data from metro Atlanta’s housing market, the area had the fewest new home starts — 4,400 — in 2009, James said.

That means in 2009, effectively only 500 lots came off the market in the metro Area, or about 1/3 of 1% of the available developed lots. Doing the math on new starts, 3,900 lots were developed last year in Atlanta.

At 4,400 new homes a year equates to a 34 year supply if no new lots were developed. A reasonable number of starts for the metro area in a normal economy is probably in the 20,000 unit range, meaning there is about a 7 year supply of lots. However, the reality is that anywhere between 10-20% of the current developed lots will likely never see houses on them either because of location or other factors including poor configuration and environmental concerns.

A good article from Inman News highlighted the area that many investment funds are headed to – residential lots.

As a result, finished lots are being dumped back into the market at 50 cents on the dollar — or much, much less — by builders and banks, which took back the properties due to loan defaults.

In bigger developments, investors have been buying these lots at 30 cents on the dollar, notes Nate Nathan, president of Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Nathan & Associates. In fact, well-funded investor groups have been sweeping up these long rows of unfinished lots by the dirtful leaving individual investors with no other option than to haunt smaller projects. And that, too, has been a worthwhile use of time and resources because, as Nathan points out, customized lots are selling for 10 cents to 20 cents on the dollar.

Think of it this way, lots are being acquired below finishing costs, which if new construction proceeds means the land cost is negligible, if not zero-valued.

The article noted that investors are expecting to hold the unfinished lots for 3 to 4 years and that they aren’t expecting significant new building to start until 2012. It also notes that we’ll need 1.2 million housing units in the next 10 years for population growth alone. (1.1 million units were built in the previous two years.)

Turns out that the US Geological Survey is actually saying that in many cases, this was a 500-year event.

“It is epic!” said Brian McCallum, assistant director for the USGS Water Science Center in Georgia. “The USGS can reliably say just how bad these floods were.”

They are calling this a 500-year flood because of the likeliness of it occurring is so rare, said McCallum. “We could have another flood next year, or floods back-to-back and still be considered 500-year floods because of the probability.”

Here is where the big problem for flooding in homes of people who didn’t have flood insurance comes in. The National Flood Insurance Program offers insurance to those who have property in the 100-year floodplain, not the 500-year floodplain. The 500-year floodplain is actually shown on many FEMA FIRM (Flood Insurance Rate Map) panels. If you’re curious to see where you property sits relative to a floodzone, you can search for flood maps at this FEMA website.

The Army Corps of Engineers, which has been a frequent target of criticism in Georgia, once again is on the defensive with regards to water releases from Lake Lanier during the floods. The Corps had this to say:

“The corps curtailed its operations on Sept. 19, and only minimal releases of approximately 670 cubic feet per second released through the small house unit have continued,” Coghlan said.

Those releases, about 300,000 gallons per minute, equated to less than an inch at a gauge 30 miles south of the dam in Vinings, according to the corps.

“Releasing from the small unit did not contribute to the localized flooding in the metro Atlanta area,” Coghlan said.

Coghlan said the flow out of large dams is rarely halted completely due to adverse impacts on river environments. The small unit generates power for the dam and project offices and “assisted in maintaining viable conditions for essential habitat below the dam,” Coghlan said.

As is usually the case with the Corps, their statements usually lead to more questions. While I doubt that releases of 670 cubic feet per second did much to exacerbate downstream flooding, the Corps apparently does have the ability to cut off all flow from Buford Dam according to Coghlan. Under what circumstances would the Corps actually do this? Coghlan correctly points out that cutting off all flow from Buford Dam would have some fairly bad consequences for the immediate area below the dam – the river would essentially be dry immediately below the dam. But what is the “essential habitat” and is 670 cfs the minimum amount of maintain “viable conditions”? Coghlan maintains that releasing did not contribute to the localized flooding downstream, but hardly seems like an accurate statement. If it’s a matter of adding no water versus adding water, then releasing certainly would contribute to the flooding. It may have been immaterial, but it certainly did contribute. By its own admission, the release added an inch to a gage 30 miles away, so on one side they say the didn’t contribute, but then acknowledge that their gage data shows they did. Of course, the Corps has earned a reputation for gage reading too.

Unfortunately for the Corps, they’re stuck in a pretty difficult position given the current legal battles going on between Georgia, Alabama and Florida. The fact they’ve become a common target doesn’t mean they’re at fault every time the weather gets wacky in Atlanta – be it drought or flooding. However, their communication of what they’re doing, how they’re doing it and why they’re doing it leaves them open to criticism. They would be wise to be more open about their operations and less defensive about their actions.

That this is even an issue, despite the fact that the drainage basin of Lake Lanier is minuscule in comparison to the the total drainage basin at either the Alabama or Florida border, is stupefying.

As an side, Lake Lanier is getting closer and closer to full pool. Earlier this year, a state climatologist predicted that Lanier would reach full pool after a dry late summer and fall and wet winter due to the effects of El Nino. Obviously that prediction didn’t include the previous week’s rains which has moved the lake to within 3 feet of full pool this morning.

The rains dropped 5.51″ as recorded at my house on Monday, which is the equivalent of a 10-year storm event. However, with a total of 5.28″ of rain occurring over the previous six consecutive days, the event manifested itself as more like a 100-year event (7.7″ of rain in 24 hours) because of the saturated ground being unable to absorb much of the rain. The rain we got Monday is the most I’ve ever recorded at the house, which includes the 2005 tropical storm season and remnants of Hurricanes Ivan and Katrina, which both dropped less than 5″ of rain. Because of the nature of the week long rain events culminated by a 10-year storm, chances are that was a once-in-a-lifetime weather event. While we’ll certainly see flooding again at some point, the incredibly unique situation that occurred last week will likely not be repeated again anytime soon.

For the 12-month period ending in March, Atlanta saw 8,972 housing starts — ranking No. 5 out of the metro areas tracked by Metrostudy. Houston topped the list with 22,502 housing starts during the same period.

According to the study, Atlanta also had the fourth-largest supply of vacant, finished new homes with 8.8 months-worth.

Home Prices

Home prices continue their downward trend. Prices in Atlanta have declined 15.7% from May 2008 to now. They have also lost 1.7% since February. Atlanta continues to “perform” better than most of the other major markets except a select few.

The Case Shiller index shows Atlanta stands at about 105. That means that homes have only appreciated 5% since January 2000. This puts Altanta near the bottom of housing appreciation of the 20 major markets that Case Shiller tracks. Only Cleveland (96) and Detroit (71) have performed worse over the past nine years. That’s fairly poor – other southeast cities that the index tracks are Charlotte (119) and Miami (149) have fared significantly better.

Despite the pessimism of the Case Shiller numbers for Atlanta, Steve Palm of SmartNumbers told the AJC that home prices hit a bottom in February.

“Case-Shiller is a great survey, but you just can’t read too much into that,” said Steve Palm, president of SmartNumbers, a real estate research firm in Marietta. “February was still the bottom, and I say that because we have every [home loan] closing tracked, so I know February was the bottom.”

Palm said the average April sale price was up $10,000 over March, which is “a very good sign.”

Finally, the National Association of Realtors says that homes are now undervalued. Be careful, though, how much stock you put into NAR’s information. I’ve included a link to their information just to be complete – I’m very skeptical of anything that NAR puts out.

There is also concern that the home price trend is now pushing into “formerly stable markets”. (Stable markets is the WSJ’s term – not mine. Sounds like an oxymoron to me.) This was inevitable, though. Overall, economist Phil Dales expects housing prices to drop another 5-10% yet.

Home Sales

Despite Georgia having the lowest mortgage rates in the country, and rates overall are practically the lowest they have ever been, economist John Lonski says they aren’t low enough to bring equilbrium in the market.

However, home sales in April were up 2.9% over March.

“Most of the sales are taking place in lower price ranges and activity is beginning to pick up in the midprice ranges, but high-end home sales remain sluggish,” said NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun. “The Federal Reserve needs to help restore liquidity for the jumbo mortgage market by buying these loans under the TALF program.”

The number of first time buyers declined to 40 percent in April, a sign that NAR says indicates more repeat buyers are getting back into the market. And the number of people actively looking for a home to buy is up 14 percent from a year ago.

This article in the Wall Street Journal has reactions from a number of economists on the housing market, including a lot of very good data – too numerous to reprint here. There is a concern that we may have hit a false bottom in housing however, as foreclosures were up 40% from March in April in California. The always optimistic NAR says that home sales will bottom in the second quarter of this year.

Home Construction

Looking at bad news optimistically, home builder confidence rose in April from March from 12 to 14. While it did rise, anything under 50 indicates that market conditions are poor. Builder expectations over the next six months rose from 24 to 27.

Home construction in general has gone down significantly from even last year. Generally, permits and starts are down for April 2009 about 50%. The number of “Zombie Subdivisions” is a major concern too – with lot inventory so high that even in the usually stable coastal markets along the east coast, they’re at least a couple of years away from seeing shovels and hammers.

Again, this article in the WSJ has a ton of data on home construction and is very much worth the read. Real estate investor Sam Zell sees the recovery happening this summer because of demand returning. In support of that, at least one firm expects a big recovery in housing because new construction is off so much that demand is going to out pace supply very soon.

Bottom Line

I would strongly reccomend reading the linked articles and drawing your own conclusions on housing market. There is an incredible amount of information there – too much to even summarize here.

Yet, there is a huge draw to the area for a couple of primary reasons also related to geography – weather and beauty. The weather of metro-Atlanta is ideal for many folks. It does get hot – but not much hotter than the midwest. It gets cold – but not even close to being as cold as the midwest and northeast. We get all four seasons, including easy drives to spectacular fall color. The topography is rolling and the growing season is long, leading to an ideal landscaping climate. The natural beauty of the area is incredible. And it’s well located – be at the beach in four hours or the mountains in two hours.

So, how do we balance this draw while providing the necessary infrastructure in an otherwise rather hostile environment for infrastructure? I don’t claim to have all the answers, but I do have some ideas. Concepts that certainly need refining, however it might give us a starting point to discuss where we need to go in order to improve the quality of life of its current citizens and continue to attract and absorb those that will come for the same reasons so many of us transplants did in the first place.

First, let’s talk about the 800-lb gorilla for metro-Atlanta – transportation. The road to hell goes through Atlanta, as the saying goes. Hit Atlanta traffic at the wrong time and hell may seem like an attractive alternative. (Although, I will say that the economy must be having an impact on traffic in the metro area. Recently I drove from the airport all the way up to the north side of Gwinnett County on I-85 and never dipped below 55 MPH at 5 PM on a weekday. I never thought I’d see the day…) The traffic situation is certainly reaching critical mass and an improved economy is only going to make the situation untenable.

As stated previously, the personal car is, without question, the absolute, dominate king of Atlanta. Sure, there are token alternatives here and there, but the car defines Atlanta. Development, even within the city itself, relies heavily on the car. All of the suburban counties are totally and completely car dependent. The ITPers (those inside I-285…) like to think they’re ahead of the game somehow – but really, there is little difference ITP versus OTP. (We’ll get to Atlanta’s train system, MARTA, in a minute…) Building the interstates and major arterial  roads bigger won’t solve our problem. Sure, we need to look at ways to be smarter about how we use our existing roads and upgrade where we can, but our long term solution is not simply to make I-85 a 40 lane interstate. The interstates are practically as wide as they could ever be right now. So let’s assume they aren’t widened – what do we do to ease the traffic problems in our city?

First, we need to be pro-active about choo-choo trains, as those who defend our automobile dependent suburban heaven like to call them. Atlanta was founded around rail and rail is going to be a major, if not the biggest, solution to our traffic woes. (It will likely be the key to Atlanta’s future economic growth, but that’s another blog…) The existing rail infrastructure for passengers is MARTA and Amtrak. MARTA’s service area, however, is too limited. It’s also poorly run and a political hot potato. MARTA needs leadership that can actually figure out a way to extend it to the suburbs and it be acceptable to suburbanites. This takes leadership who can move beyond demagoging the suburbs – the lack of leadership in Atlanta, in general, is what led to many breakaway cities being formed recently including Sandy Springs, Milton and John’s Creek. The inability to play nice is severely costing the metro area.

Enough about that, let’s talk about solutions. The first ambitious plan, aptly named “The Brain Train”, would hit all of the major universities, and several smaller ones, from UGA to Georgia Tech. This could become the mainline for the northeastern portion of the metro area, with other future stations connecting into it. Cobb County and the northwest side of Atlanta has a similar plan that would connect Kennesaw State and the Cumberland Mall area presumably to MARTA, but the details of that plan are fairly slim. Gwinnett and Cobb Counties have about 1.5 million people between them alone and no rail system – that’s a problem and these two rail plans would be the building blocks for traffic relief, and at least as important, future growth for these counties. To the south, we’re very close to seeing a commuter rail between Griffin, Georgia and Atlanta. As B King points out in that blog, we need to act cohesively as a region in order to address our transportation problems. Rail is the most critical way to address not just our traffic problems, but our long term economic prosperity in the suburban counties.

Looking way out into the future, as nearby metro areas like Charlotte and Chattanooga and Atlanta converge to make something of a “mega-region” as it’s being called, there area ideas out there to address transportation issues with rail. Current Charlotte mayor Pat McCrory discussed a conceptual idea recently regarding rail service between Atlanta and Charlotte – something that would connect the many large corporations of Atlanta with the financial horsepower that Charlotte is home to. Chattanooga would become another key partner in the “mega-region” for a different, but just as important, reason – water. I’ll get to that later. Savannah has endorsed the portion of President Obama’s high speed rail line that would connect it to Atlanta and Charlotte. (By the way, looking at the proposed map by President Obama – why wouldn’t there be a connection from Lousiville to Atlanta with a stop in Nashville and Chatanooga? Is it the cost of going over the mountains?)

Getting back to the automobile, Georgia DOT has its share of problems. I wrote previously about the balancing law – something that is not DOT’s fault. It just has to live up to a ridiculous law. Once again, B King at Terminal Station sums up many of DOT’s problems quite well. Governor Perdue is attempting to correct the problems, and SB 200 is supposed to do it. However, I am skeptical of how well it will work. It may just trade one set of politics to another. The Democrats’ comments on the new system sound exactly like comments you could make of the old system, so they don’t strike me as productive. If they have a better solution than what the Governor came up with, beyond leave it like it was, they need to present it. Jay Bookman at the AJC also makes a good summary of the political problems facing Georgia in its quest to solve the metro area’s transportation problems.

The answer to this is two fold. First, end the balancing law. Second, enact the regional version of the T-SPLOST. Glenn Richardson wants a statewide transportation T-SPLOST for the very reason Mr. Bookman stated – it will continue the taking of metro area money and redistributing it outside the metro area. Finally, prioritize the projects in the same manner that Gwinnett County prioritizes its SPLOST projects – by need. Come up with logical, defensible criteria that is easy to understand and score each project on its merits. And anybody should be able to suggest projects – from the Governor to a citizen of Germany – for Georgia DOT to fund. You never know where a great idea will come from.

Finally, looking at public transportation, we need to look hard at how well it services the citizens it serves. A bus system is only as good as its ridership. I believe a bus system will be very effective in tandem with a rail system. On their own, each system will only be mediocre. Together, there is a good chance that it would provide actual congestion relief.

In my next blog, we’ll talk about the second part of Atlanta’s infrastructure that’s always in the news – water. We’ll talk drinking water, sanitary sewer and stormwater.

UPDATE: I found this article, which features a panel discussion on being carfree in the suburbs.

In my early January blog regarding this year’s residential real estate market, I commented that I didn’t think we’d likely see a bottom until next year. I still believe that, but there has been some encouraging news develop in the metro Atlanta area over the past two weeks.

The metro area’s biggest builders have started buying lots and are preparing to build again, according to an article in the Atlanta Business Chronicle.

For Centex, the purchase of the remaining 15 developed lots in Laurel Pond off Kimble Bridge Road in Alpharetta marks the first time in nearly a year the builder has purchased lots in metro Atlanta.

Centex (NYSE: CTX), which is down to single-digit new home inventory, bought the lots out of foreclosure from Colonial Bank in December, said Brent Landry, director of sales and marketing at Centex Homes in Atlanta, the 14th-largest home builder according to Atlanta Business Chronicle’s 2008-2009 Book of Lists.

Databank Inc., a real estate research firm, reports Centex paid about $1.3 million for the lots.

Centex is building homes on two of the Laurel Pond lots, Landry said, and will build more as those homes are sold.

D.R. Horton (NYSE: DHI), Atlanta’s third-largest home builder, bought lots in three new subdivisions in the past quarter, said Andy Oxley, chief operating manager for D.R. Horton’s Southeast region. Some of the lots were purchased out of foreclosure, others from developers at current market rates, he said.

Ryland Homes (NYSE: RYL) is scouting the market for deals, said Chuck Fuhr, Ryland’s Atlanta division president.

That’s a fairly significant move, although not huge, it signals that the builders are beginning to see something change in the market. It was a signal in the fourth quarter of 2006 from a builder who I worked with that things in the residential market were making a significant change for the worse. They were obviously on top of their game. Now, it appears that perhaps those builders who were seeing something wrong in 2006 are beginning to see something right in 2009. We certainly have a long way to go – single family building permit were down in the last quarter of 2008 by 75% over 2007 and 90% from 2005.

Now, closely related to this, because these builders are “large” builders, is a bill that is winding its way through congress. The builders would be able to take advantage of a huge tax break.

According to Zelman & Associates, a housing research firm, the nation’s 13 largest builders will reap $2.4 billion in tax refunds this year under the current law, which is more cash than Zelman expects them to generate from selling homes and land. Under the current tax law, many big builders won’t qualify for sizable refunds in the coming years, and they have been lobbying for the proposed change.

But some small builders say the measure would encourage big builders to continue to dump land and houses for artificially low prices to generate a loss for tax purposes. That, in turn, would drag values down even further, they argue.

Here is a good example of government influence in the market that makes it difficult to actually understand if market forces are at work or manipulative forces are at work. With the passage of the stimulus bill, this kind of conundrum will continue to rise – it’s going to be difficult to tell what is a real, sustained recovery and what is a recovery that may only be temporary because of either short term government spending or tax breaks.

Meanwhile, builders face another problem – foreclosed homes. Although this article focuses on builders, the guy trying to sell his home so he can move to a new job faces an even bigger hurdle. Much like the small builder who can’t take advantage of the tax break discussed above, the homeowner who is trying to sell his home also has a liquidity problem trying to sell his home against banks and builders.

As the normally hot spring selling season begins, two houses in the Inland Empire region of Southern California sum up the big problem facing many of the nation’s largest home builders.

One of the houses, a four bedroom built in 2006 that was seized by a lender in a foreclosure action, is listed for sale at $229,900. Meanwhile, in the same housing development, D.R. Horton Inc. is trying to sell a new house that looks nearly identical for $299,000, or 23% more.

Or consider Pulte Homes Inc.’s predicament in Henderson, Nev., near Las Vegas. The builder is trying to sell a new, four-bedroom house for $214,990, while a home owner is trying to dump a similar house, which Pulte built two years ago, for $149,999. That price is less than the owner’s mortgage under a “short sale” approved by the lender.

In many markets, “we are no longer competing with other builders. We are competing with foreclosures,” said Steve Ruffner, president of the Southern California division of KB Home.

All-in-all, the good news is that supply continues to diminish, and with so few new homes coming on to the market, we’re beginning to see the signs of a “bottom” in terms of home sales. It is likely that we will continue to see prices fall and that we’ll stay close to where we are now for at least the next year.

Atlanta’s skyline will likely remain unchanged for the next decade or so.

“When will we see the next 50-story building in Buckhead? I would guess that if we see another 50-story building there in the next 10 years, I would be surprised,” said Clark Gore, market director of Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. “The skyline is impacted by where we are in the recovery.”

These is substantial risk in speculative buildings right now and developers are only going forward with projects that have a significant amount of pre-leases in place. There is even talk that LEED certification for buildings will practically be a prerequisite going forward. This makes sense because LEED projects typically are more expensive on the front end, but the back end payoff would appear large because of the points scored for location, reuse of materials and, generally, a more thoughtful approach to a project. LEED certification for buildings seems to be a good litmus checklist for going forward on a project, regardless if the developer’s intention is to be “green”.

As Brian Leary, vice president of design and development for Atlantic Station LLC, points out, these types of projects won’t be exclusively inside the perimeter.

Areas that already offer infrastructure and allow for more dense development will be well-positioned to take advantage of an economic recovery. Those locations don’t just include prominent submarkets such as Buckhead, Midtown and Perimeter Center, but downtowns in Suwanee and Duluth and other suburban areas that offer an opportunity for a higher quality of life.

Another area of strength for the Atlanta market will be the industrial distribution hubs that have been springing up along the interstate corridors for a number of years now. That trend is expected to continue as the Port of Savannah expands.

“When it settles down, we’ll start seeing growth because there’s no new space out there to compete,” said Dave Watson, senior vice president at Grubb & Ellis Co.

It’s also likely to help make industrial real estate here attractive to foreign buyers seeking solid investments.

“There’s going to be a glut of distressed sales and some other opportunities,” said Mike Gray, senior vice president with Panattoni Construction Inc.

Currently, Atlanta’s industrial market has a 17.4% vacancy rate.

So, we’re likely to see, perhaps, something that I discussed in an earlier blog – a move towards social land development. President Obama signaled that he is in favor of this trend. Although, I think his view is overly limited to existing urban centers and fails to see the thriving and successful suburban town centers that are also being created.

In my next blog, we’ll explore the infrastructure side of the future of Atlanta. Infrastructure will be the key to many city’s success or failure in the coming decade. Failure to address the key infrastructure needs of a city will cause it to die. Fortunately, there are some strong voices in metro Atlanta for addressing the area’s sorely lacking infrastructure.

One amazing tool that many folks don’t know about or understand is called an RSS feed. This blog has one. And I’ve even set one up to feed the most current news in land development, with an obvious focus on the southeast and, in particular, the southeast. But what is it?

First, let’s define the acronym. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. In order to do anything with an RSS feed, you need an RSS reader. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of RSS readers. If you mouse over the “subscribe” button on the right, you’ll see many of the most popular readers.

But why use an RSS feed?

Most importantly, it saves you time like you’d never believe. I am able to read the AJC, New York Times, nearly every Business Chronicle in the United States, the Wall Street Journal, several blogs and other smaller newspapers with about a 15-20 minute investment each day. And the best part of all of that is that I never miss an article.

How is that possible?

The RSS reader loads every article for you automatically. There is no wasted time visiting dozens (hundreds?) of websites. You don’t have to figure out what’s been posted since you last visited. You don’t have to click through categories to find what you want to read.

What do I use?

I use Google Reader because of its super clean interface and ease of use. Here is an article and short video on how to use Google Reader.

With that part out of the way, here’s another reason to use an RSS reader – my reading list on the right side of this page titled “Blue Blog Bits”. If you’re stubborn and don’t want to utilize an RSS reader, you can still take advantage of the reading list. However, you’ll only get the six most current articles that I’ve highlighted. As I said earlier, I read dozens of sources. Those sources produce around 500+ articles a day. I sift through those sources and share the most pertinent and interesting articles in my reading list. Those articles deal entirely with land development (of all sorts…) and, to a lesser extent, the economy. And, for the most part, I only highlight economic articles that I see as having an impact on the land development industry. No, you won’t find out that XYZ Corporation just laid off 130,000 employees – there’s plenty of that places elsewhere you can subscribe to. But it will let you know what economists think of the economic stimulus package. Basically, if you’re in the land development industry (especially in the southeast and Atlanta), my reading list feed will save you an incredible amount of time and get you up to date on what’s happening in our industry from multiple sources.

So, go find an RSS reader and subscribe to, at a minimum, these two feeds:

• http://feeds.feedburner.com/blueblogbits
• http://feeds.feedburner.com/bluelandworksllc

Those two feeds, in order, are “Blue Blog Bits” and “The Blue Blog”.

I promise that if you’re wasting time surfing to multiple news websites every day, this will add several minutes (hours?) back to your day. Give it a try for a week. Then, leave a comment here and let me know how it’s going.

Atlanta is no exception to that. People have been moving back ITP for awhile now. Gwinnett County is seeing a number of its cities develop or redevelop town centers.

Leading the way is Lawrenceville and Emory Morsberger’s efforts to rebuild and revitalize the county seat. Suwanee, which continues to gain national recognition for its livability, has built, and continues to build, what is likely metro Atlanta most ambitious development of a downtown and park system. Other cities in Gwinnett, like Norcross, Sugar Hill and Snellville, are also moving in similar directions, some with more success than others.

Mr. Brooks states that he would like to see the stimulus money that Barack Obama wants to spend on infrastructure spent in helping to build these downtowns rather than projects that are ready to go, just for the sake of getting money into the system.

Barack Obama has said that he would start an infrastructure project that will dwarf Dwight Eisenhower’s highway program. If, indeed, we are going to have a once-in-a-half-century infrastructure investment, it would be great if the program would build on today’s emerging patterns. It would be great if Obama’s spending, instead of just dissolving into the maw of construction, would actually encourage the clustering and leave a legacy that would be visible and beloved 50 years from now.

I think Mr. Brooks’ idea is a good one – stimulus money going into assisting cities build or revitalize downtowns is a noble goal. However, it would take years of planning in order for it to be done correctly. Mr. Brooks laments that the money will go to perpetuating the current modes of transportation.

But alas, there’s no evidence so far that the Obama infrastructure plan is attached to any larger social vision. In fact, there is a real danger that the plan will retard innovation and entrench the past.

In a stimulus plan, the first job is to get money out the door quickly. That means you avoid anything that might require planning and creativity. You avoid anything that might require careful implementation or novel approaches. The quickest thing to do is simply throw money at things that already exist.

Unfortunately, our infrastructure is so lacking in maintenance that we need huge investment just to get it back to an acceptable level. We are years, perhaps decades, away from truly getting to any sort of renaissance in social land development. As Mr. Brooks points out, prior to the recession, we were making great strides as the market moved in this direction.

There are certainly aspects of President-elect Obama’s plan whose outcomes are rather dubious in nature. Putting computers in classrooms, fixing school buildings, retrofitting government buildings to make them more energy efficient. (Although, I have to say, I’d rather see tax dollars go there than to propping up failing companies.) However, fixing the country’s existing infrastructure and allowing states to move forward on transportation projects that are likely desperately needed should be the first focus. As the war in Iraq winds down and, if we’re smart enough not to dump billions in private companies, Mr. Brooks idea would be a great starting point in perhaps moving us where we were already going, just a little quicker, to more social land development.