Looks like a small town place to me from that aerial. Can't really tell if its a college town like Statesboro or just a nowhere town that happened to have a stadium. I don't really see how that picture of Atlanta 60 years ago could be our hope for the future of a 5.2 million person metro.
This is Atlanta today. I zoomed in right on that connector to make a point. As you can see, development rolls right up to and around the highway.
This is Atlanta "60 years ago."
Now, then. It is one thing to be nostalgic for the old times. It is quite another to hope that that image represent an idea of Atlanta in the present. Yes there is a highway, but It is not very apparent from either photograph how the city is suffering. In fact, the differences in the photograph prove that Atlanta has boomed greatly since the placement of the connector and has enabled what seems to be more varied and scenic neighborhoods.
I can tell that you seem against the very idea of highways in Atlanta proper. Let me suggest you move to a place where highways are far and few in between as the reality of the matter is that the highway is as much Atlanta as Midtown itself.
You cannot redirect the people who move along the connector into surface streets or onto other highways. It isn't feasible and it doesn't serve much of a purpose. A plus about the surface streets is that they only handle local traffic so they tend to be pretty light except at peak hours. If you don't give people the highway alternative, they will be forced to clog up those surface streets and stifle the region.
What exactly do you think would happen if the connector vanished anyhow? Some sort of urban renewal? What do you think is happening now? Why are you so dead set against the connector? It doesn't cut through the city, it is a piece of it. Businesses grew around it because of it's existence. Atlanta is growing around it taking for granted it's continued existence. People cross those dozen bridges without thinking twice. How would anyone possibly benefit its destruction? It is a strip half a block wide, not an international airport or something plopped into downtown.
Last question: If dismantling it is a minimum, what would be the maximum or were you using a literary device to prove a point?
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