Atlanta Unbound

Looking at Atlanta, Georgia, one might conclude that the citys notorious sprawl, degraded air quality, and tenuous water supply is a result of a lack of planningparticularly an absence of coordination at the regional level. In Atlanta Unbound, Carlton Wade Basmajian shows that Atlantas low-density urban form and its associated problems have been both highly coordinated and regionally planned. Basmajians shrewd analysis shows how regional policies spanned political boundaries and framed local debates over several decades. He examines the role of the Atlanta Regional Commissions planning deliberations that appear to have contributed to the urban sprawl that they were designed to control. Basmajian explores four casesregional land development plans, water supply strategies, growth management policies, and transportation infrastructure programsto provide a detailed account of the interactions between citizens, planners, regional commissions, state government, and federal agencies. In the process, Atlanta Unbound answers the question: Toward what end and for whom is Atlantas regional planning process working? In the series Urban Life, Landscape, and Policy, edited by Zane L. Miller, David Stradling, and Larry Bennett