Andres Duany tapped for metro Atlanta aging project

After months of behind-the-scenes coordination, the Atlanta Regional Commission can finally confirm celebrated New Urbanist Andres Duany's project for metro Atlanta.

In early February, Duany and a team of town planners from his Duany Plater-Zyberk firm will hold a nine-day series of charrettes to design five sites in the metro region aimed at retrofitting communities — a proactive move to accommodate the growing population of aging metro Atlantans.

If that sounds like a ho-hum project for a town planner commonly called the "father of New Urbanism," think more long-term. By 2030, according to the commission, one out of five people living in metro Atlanta will be over the age of 55. And the auto-dependent, subdivision existence that is metro Atlanta doesn't bode well for those residents in terms of housing, transportation and quality of life.

Members of Duany's team will set up shop in the commission's downtown headquarters, hear input from stakeholders, and assemble and present its preliminary vision for five chosen sites — Toco Hills in DeKalb County, the Grant Park area along the Beltline, Mableton, Fayetteville and Conyers. Think of the process as Jackson Pollock meets urban planning.

Funding for the charrettes is provided by the American Association of Retired Persons, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Kathryn Lawler, the commission's project manager, says the initiative is a first and could have national implications for how sprawl-ravaged regions can adapt to a population that's living longer — and deserving of the right to move about the world like its younger counterparts.

(Photo courtesy of Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company)