SUBURBAN DOWNTOWNS AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF METROPOLITAN ATLANTA'S BUSINESS LANDSCAPE

Abstract

The suburbanization of economic activity reached massive proportions in recent years and contributed significantly to the spatial restructuring of the American metropolis. One of the most important geographic expressions in the emergence of the outer suburban city is the clustering of high-order activities in new metropolitan-level urban centers. These complexes are here defined as suburban downtowns, and their rapid evolution since the 1960s is traced through a number of developmental stages. Two of metropolitan Atlanta's suburban downtowns, which -ank among the largest in the United States, are highlighted in case studies in order to demonstrate the still-evolving dynamics that shape the functioning and internal structuring of these first-order activity complexes.