How many people will live in metro Atlanta in 25 years? How does a child’s neighborhood affect their educational prospects? What kind of jobs are most in demand today – and does our region have enough qualified workers to fill those positions?
These are just some of the hugely important questions that Mike Carnathan wrestled with every day during his 25-year career at the Atlanta Regional Commission.
Carnathan, who leads the agency’s Research & Analytics department, retires this month from ARC. We sat down with him recently for an exit interview of sorts to get his thoughts on his career and where he thinks the Atlanta region is headed.
Q: Metro Atlanta has changed so much in the past 25 years. What stands out to you as some of most important ways the region has changed?
What really stands out to me is how ‘urban’ a lot of our suburban areas have become, thanks in large part to ARC’s Livable Centers Initiative. It’s fitting that my first assignment at ARC was writing the press release to announce that program.
Over the past 25 years, we’ve seen so many places around the region become more vibrant and walkable. This includes places we used to call the exurbs, like Woodstock, Lawrenceville, and Douglasville. We’ve just seen really great places rise out of the ground.
People are craving urban living. And by that, I mean living in places with a mix of housing, shops, and offices, where it’s possible to walk or bike to run errands or get a bite to eat. When I started at ARC in 2000, metro Atlanta had the moniker ‘King of Sprawl,’ and it was weird to think about urban living back then. But once we started focusing on urbanism in our region, we found out that people really do want that kind of experience.
Q: Crystal ball time. What do you think our region will look like 25 years from now?
The region as it was when I began working here 25 years looks a lot different than it does today. We’ve gotten a lot more diverse. And this trend will continue in the years to come.
But perhaps the biggest change we are going to see, based on the data, is we are going to become a significantly older place. That doesn’t mean we are going to be like Japan or Italy. We will remain relatively young, but we will have a significant number of residents who are 75 years of age or older. Our 2050 forecast says 13% will be 75+. That’s more than 900,000 people.
That means we must think about a different planning paradigm. In the past, our planning work, including transportation, has been geared to support large numbers of working-age folks, centered on the 9-5 workday. Moving forward, we will have to figure out how to better serve that older population, with regard to everything from transportation and housing to the delivery of health care. That’s going to be the most important thing change between now and 2050.
Q: How has ARC’s research helped shape our region today?
It’s really the way that we talk about the challenges that we’re facing. I’ve always said the highest and best use of data is as a conversation stater. Data in and of itself won’t solve the challenge. But it gets you down the road because it helps you have better, smarter, more productive conversations.
At ARC, our data became the foundation for major regional efforts like Aerotropolis Atlanta, Learn4Life, ARCHI, CareerRise and HouseATL. By using a data-driven process, we realized that most of our challenges required a systems approach.
The region is a system, with so much interconnectedness. Incomes are related to education, which is related to housing, which is related to jobs, which is related to transportation… you get the point. Having lots of data is really the only way to describe that system. This galvanizes people to come up with structural solutions like the regional Learn4Life education initiative, which seeks to remove barriers in the ‘cradle to career’ pipeline and offer improved opportunities for our region’s children.
These organizations couldn’t have gotten off the ground without this data-driven approach, and that’s some of the work I’m most proud of.
Q: What will you miss most about working at ARC?
It really is the people. It’s the intellectual energy that walks into this building every single day. It’s staggering.
We may take it for granted at ARC, but it’s powerful that I am able to have deep conversations on a regular basis about issues like climate change and how that impacts transportation, housing affordability, or the impact of data centers on our water and energy supplies. These are conversations that don’t happen naturally in the real world. I am going to miss it dearly.
Q: What’s next for you?
Well, I won’t be disappearing on an ice floe. I plan to still be in the game. There are still issues that I’m very passionate about that I want to contribute my intellectual energy to. So, I will be looking for those opportunities wherever I can find them.
What’s Next ATL, produced by the Atlanta Regional Commission, is a community resource that explores how metro Atlanta is growing and changing, and how the region is addressing its most pressing challenges.
