If you’ve paid attention to news out of MARTA the past several weeks, you’ve no doubt heard the phrase "transit-oriented development." So why is transit-oriented development (TOD) a buzzword now? Mainly it's a money-making opportunity for MARTA, as private developers will pay long-term leases on MARTA-owned lands. And MARTA desperately needs new revenue streams. In January, MARTA brought on Amanda Rhein, a former managing director at Invest Atlanta, as senior director of transit-oriented development. "As I went through college I realized there was this career called urban planning, so I went straight from undergrad into grad school [at Georgia Tech]. I looked at grad schools all across the country, but Atlanta was the most interesting because it really was a laboratory for the problems that urban planners are trying to find solutions to," Rhein told Atlanta Magazine when asked how she got into city planning.
