A Realistic View of Live, Work, Play

Suwanee, Georgia- poster child of a live, work, play community

Many major cities and large suburban cities are beginning to promote a mixed use lifestyle of live, work, play. The idea being that you can live your entire life within one town. One can supposedly live within this town, go to work at the office park in this town, and then go to its town center for lunch or dinner completing the triad with "play." And its not a bad lifestyle to try to emulate. Before the highway era, most American towns were live, work, play environments because the lack of the automobile restricted growth and provided dense, mixed-use towns to live in. Towns like Suwanee, Georgia whose slogan is in fact "Live, Work, Play" are moving in the right direction by focusing on new job growth, an expanded town center and historic district, new urbanists' walkable developments, and bike and walking trails to promote multi-modal life.

These efforts should and must be applauded because the alternative (sprawl) is no productive way to live. Of course, there are faults with this plan, and Suwanee is still almost entirely a car-only town with their new approach, but it is a movement in the right direction to correcting our original mistakes of suburban sprawl.

Yet having grown up just outside Suwanee and knowing people who live within, I only know of one family who really could fulfill the live, work, play scenario after ten years of this approach. Suwanee is still a commuter town with I-85 filling up to the brim everyday right through Suwanee. Most people's lives do not levitate around one place, its encompasses the entire region now. People live in a place like Suwanee, commute an hour down the road to work at the Perimeter Center (Sandy Springs/Dunwoody), and take their family or spouse out for a special night in Midtown or Buckhead. We are no longer people of one community, but people of one region. 

Yet, we are only able to vote for representatives in one community. A resident of Suwanee can only have a say in the city of Suwanee government and Gwinnett County government even if they spend more than eight hours a day outside of the county. This doesn't really make sense. If the majority of your day is spent in another place, you should have a say in what goes on there.

Atlanta's Metropolitan Statistical Area- encompasses almost all of North Georgia now

Is there a possible solution to this region-wide issue? (Of course there is!) It is to create more government! Libertarians don't fret though. I am not proposing bigger government, just one coordinated regional government. A similar system already is in place for Atlanta's MSA (Metropolitan Statistical Area) called the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC). The ARC is technically not elected by the people; they are chosen representatives by their fellow politicians. For instance, all of the mayors of Gwinnett select one mayor to represent them at the commission. In addition, the ARC has little real power in creating change throughout the region. As of right now, they are more of a tool that municipalities and counties rely on for planning research, additional funding, or other various needs.

So what if instead of the ARC being a commission it became an ARG. An Atlanta Regional Government would be elected by the people of the region and would have more leniency to create change in the region. The region would be set up into sub-sects, and each sub-sect could vote on a representative to represent them at the regional level. This government would then have the power to take all of the transportation agencies under its wing and create one coordinated system, have the power to accept or deny large developments, coordinate zoning between municipalities and counties, create smart corridors of equitable growth, organize an urban growth boundary, control regional land use decisions, and even have the ability to tax.

While I certainly see an argument against this regional government being an abuse of power by the government over the people, the irony in that argument is that most people have no choice, no voice even, as to what happens around the majority of their lives right now. If you disagree with Dunwoody building massive office towers right along the interstate due to traffic concerns but live in Cobb County then you have no ability to stop these developments. If Atlanta had a regional government, suddenly you would have a way to make sure your concerns are voiced.

Portland, Oregon's Regional Government: Metro

Only one American region has successfully implemented a regionally elected government. Portland, Oregon has the Metro government. Metro government includes all the towns and communities surrounding the city of Portland, and its main responsibilities are running the region's transportation agency Tri-Met, controlling land-use decisions, and solving disputes over its urban growth boundary. People elect representatives to this collective body, and from there, the regional government makes decisions affecting the entire region. Metro has had significant success with Portland, Oregon being one of the most livable and walkable regions in the country. The region of Portland works, and the reason it "works" is because it has a regional government that makes collective decisions that benefit all.

It is my opinion that all American regions should have a democratically elected government that makes decisions for the collective whole because our lives do not live, work, and play in just one place anymore. Instead, our lives span across multiple cities and counties on a day-to-day basis. So if our lives span across over multiple places, why don't we have a government that represents us across these places? The sooner we recognize that transportation, land use, and growth are collective issues, the sooner our region will become a better place to live for the collective self.