Sprawled Out in Atlanta - Rebecca Burns - POLITICO Magazine: When you reach White Circle, you can turn east to get to Hamilton Grove, a relatively new subdivision of three- and four-bedroom two-story homes with high-ceilinged great rooms and luxurious master baths that sell in the $300,000s. Or you can turn west on White Circle until you get to a steep driveway that passes a retaining wall on which elegant brass letters read “The Foothills at Kennesaw Mountain.” That sign is for what was intended to be an upscale shopping center, constructed in 2006 of stacked-stone walls and neutrally tasteful taupe stucco. Stores never opened here, and this little strip mall, like dozens scattered throughout Atlanta’s suburbs, remained vacant, a victim of enthusiastic speculation and abandoned ambitions.
