Is a 'Bright Lights District' a Good Fit for Atlanta?

Mimi Kirk reports for CityLab on the efforts in Atlanta to develop a "bright lights district" akin to Times Square in New York. "The organization Central Atlanta Progress (CAP) is spearheading the effort to relax signage restrictions so that property owners can go bigger and brighter," writes Kirk.

Currently the city's zoning code caps signs at a maximum of 200 square feet. The group is pushing to allow bigger and brighter signs.

An earlier article by Amy Wenk reports on more of the details of the city ordinance that would enable the bright lights district. According to Wenk, the district "would stretch from the Georgia World Congress Center east to Piedmont Avenue, and from the attractions at Ivan Allen Jr. Boulevard south to Underground Atlanta. The district would include the new Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Philips Arena, The Tabernacle and Georgia Aquarium." The ordinance could go before the Atlanta City Council for a vote as soon as January.

In the article for CityLab, Kirk supplements a discussion of the details of the new ordinance with insight from Margaret Petty, head of the School of Design at Australia’s Queensland University of Technology, and Josiane Meier, lecturer at the Technical University of Berlin and co-editor of Urban Lighting, Light Pollution, and Society. Both those experts throw cold water on the idea that a bright lights district will attract tourists and visitors without additional key ingredients like density. There are also drawbacks to the environmental impact of bigger and brighter signs.