Atlanta is a great city to live in, but we got problems living intown. Big problems. The biggest one is in our rotten housing options for condominiums.
Atlanta condo builders are stupid. Very stupid. They will pay for their stupidity by all the unsold inventory sitting on the market. But we also pay as people who want to live in condos but can't for having no good options.
I know of no exception to this. Every new high rise condominium has the same floor plan, even for its biggest units. The two bedroom/two bathroom roommate plan with a kitchen and living room in the middle. There is everything wrong with this 2/2 Plan for everyone above the age of 22.
Who the 2/2 Succeeds With: Single Young Professionals
- It appeals only people who want roommates with relative privacy on either end of the unit.
- It works only for people who want a bedroom of their own and a dedicated office.
- It perpetuates a single person's limited perspective by having great views with no room for growth.
- It creates a glut of condo space once all the available buyers of single professionals are tapped out of money or paired off with roommates.
Who the 2/2 Fails With: Everyone Else Who Needs More Than 2 Bedrooms
Atlanta fancies itself an international city. This is as misguided as Cheeseheads from Wisconsin wearing Venizia! gondola hats in Venice as authentic tourism.
Atlanta is a small town grown tall and wide, that's all. If we were an international city, we would have city-living available to all who want it. What we have now is not by design, but by default.
We should replicate the McMansions of our vast suburbs in the sky. Why not? Land here is cheap, especially compared to cities like New York, D.C., Los Angeles, and Chicago. Space is even cheaper!
We should have flats with comparable living space as our suburban homes. People want condos on one floor that's between 2000 to 5000 square feet per unit. What's the limit here, exactly? Other than imagination.
Plenty of folks prefer to live intown but cannot. Even if they want to downsize, there's no equivalent condo space that can accommodate them and all their stuff. Not when you have a tiny 2/2 with no room for guests and life's other overflow.
If we focused on only one major design flaw that shows how unlivable condos are for older professionals, it would be balconies. Suburban homes have huge decks that accommodate 6-chair tables, 2 chaise lounges, a bison-sized grill, and plenty of potted plants. Add a dog barking at butterflies to complete the idyllic image of domestic bliss.
Most high-rise condos do not have balconies. Floor-to-ceiling windows are not the same thing because there is no outdoor space. Especially when you cannot even open the windows to smell the spring air.
When there are balconies, they cannot even fit a 4-chair table. Add to the precarious wire railings with no overhang to its dismal design. That feature is liability, not livability.
There is no appeal to condos for folks who have simply lived better than rats in a Skinner Box.
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