We’re all at the table, so let’s talk

Martha Farnsworth Riche, former director of the U.S. Census Bureau, spoke to more than 150 participants at “The Changing Faces of the Future” Fifty Forward forum, held Sept. 10 at the Morehouse Leadership Center.

Following Riche’s address, two local experts, Jane Smith, executive director of the Spelman College Center for Leadership and Civic Engagement, and Tisha Tallman, President and CEO of the Georgia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, joined Riche onstage for a Q&A session with members of the audience.

Most of the discussion centered around situations where the benefits of embracing diversity had not yet been realized.

When answering one audience member’s question about maximizing the benefits of diversity in the workforce, Riche said:

 “Atlanta is incredibly positioned to embrace diversity as a positive force, perhaps the leading city in the country in this regard. Anybody in the world can come to Atlanta and be at home. That is a strength that few cities have.”

We’ll have more updates on the forum later, but for now …

 Do you agree with Riche? Is metro Atlanta as welcoming as many of us think it is?

Your Growth is My Sprawl and Vice Versa

Since the mid-1990s, the Atlanta region has had a tsunami of growth – almost a million new residents as well as a huge accompaniment of businesses, visitors and public and private investments – which has swept aside capacities, plans and resources needed to meet the demand.

A series of three Sustainable Atlanta Roundtable sessions will bring in a number of respected thought-leaders to discuss the impact of Atlanta’s historic growth and what can be done to ensure a more livable future.

Guests include:

Michael Dobbins, Professor, Georgia Tech College of Architecture

Kay B. Lee, Director, Center for Community Preservation and Planning, Newton County

Randy Roark, Professor Emeritus, Georgia Tech College of Architecture

Scott Bernstein, Founder and President, Center for Neighborhood Technology

Leon S. Eplan, Principal, Eplan Consulting

Dan Reuter, Chief of Land Use Planning, Atlanta Regional Commission

While we’re on the subject of rising to the massive challenge of growth management, be sure to read the candid article below.

A Time To Review Georgia’s Growth Policy

By Dan Reuter

There are many good examples of Georgia cities and counties that are permitting new walkable and mixed use developments, upgrading aging infrastructure and building sidewalks or multi-use paths, such as Athens, Savannah, Morrow Woodstock, Suwannee, Cobb County Gwinnett County and others. 

But we also have cities and counties that are still stuck in the last century of promoting growth and economic development that may have a short lifespan of success. We understand that we are living in a global economy with competition for oil, resources and investments. 

But are we ready to make decisions that can allow Georgia to compete? 

Will the state of Georgia and local governments work together to make new investments in our economic future? 

Full article

Back to the Future

In 2005, a group of interested citizens and organizations began a dialogue to create a more sustainable food system for Metro Atlanta, resulting in the creation of the Atlanta Local Food Initiative.

Some of the group’s partners include the CDC, DeKalb County Board of Health, UGA’s Cooperative Extension and Center for Urban Agriculture.

The group “envisions a transformed food system” made safer, more affordable and one that will “rebuild Southern foodways in harmony with the land.”

One of the group’s goals is to launch a farm-to-school program, which are popular in other urban areas surrounded by thriving agricultural communities. Atlanta certainly fits the bill in that regard.

 Some other goals:

• Preserve greenspace
• Reduce petroleum
• Promote healthy eating
• Build local economies
• Create new jobs

Check out the initiative’s brand-spanking new report. It’s comprehensive but not in a dull way. And, maybe report isn’t the best way to describe. It’s more like a plan, a roadmap to actually accomplish the goals ALFI has set.

Could this document outline some of the key steps that could lead to a prosperous, sustainable and yummy future for the Atlanta region?

We’re always focusing on the future on this site, but this report suggests that looking at the past is just as worthy an exercise. Back in the day, local markets sold local produce that was chemical-free and grown in a way that didn’t ruin watersheds or require barrels of oil.

And since that food wasn’t trucked half-way across the country, it was less expensive, too. Today, prices – whether gasoline or groceries -  are a big concern for most of us.

We’ve got a lot to learn, a long way to go and every little bit helps. Thanks, ALFI.

(Not) Living Together

In his book “The Big Sort,” journalist Bill Bishop takes a look at how Americans have sorted themselves out over the last 30 years. It’s not a red-state/blue-state division. The sorting that he’s looking at is taking place at the neighborhood level. Bishop’s thesis is that affluence and mobility have made it possible for us to live pretty much anywhere we want. Increasingly, he suggests, we are choosing to live in neighborhoods of like-minded people. “Given a choice,” he writes, “people will choose to read, be among, watch, live with, worship with, vote with, people who are like themselves.”

This sorting out is accelerated by the Internet. About eight million people log on to political blogs or partisan web journals every day, creating virtual communities of like-minded individuals who hear only from others who think like they do. Thus, we rarely find ourselves in spaces where we have conversations with people who don’t share our world view.

As we prepare for a much more culturally diverse metro region, what will we need to do to create those spaces where conversations among people of differing views can occur?

What new institutions and organizations we need to work across cultural boundaries to address regional challenges?

We’re getting older. Will we be wiser?

The Atlanta region is experiencing the most profound demographic shift we have ever faced. By 2030, one out of every five residents will be over the age of 60, up from one in 10 today. We are not prepared for this new world.

 

The region’s housing is not ready to the support the changing needs and preferences of a growing older adult population. By 2040 fewer than 30 percent of households will have children, down from nearly half in 1960. The flip side is that the percentage of single-person households will swell to 30 percent. Between 2000 and 2040, the number of households without children is expected to grow by 80 percent

 

Factor in the numbers of older people who will give up their car keys, willingly or not, and we have a recipe for failure if we don’t build smaller homes, closer to each other and closer to services, and if we don’t figure out how people can get to where they need to go without a car.

 

While almost no one disagrees that we need more housing for seniors, many homeowners associations balk when a developer wants to build homes for seniors nearby. “Density” is a dirty word, and few want it in their backyard.

 

Between 2000 and 2040, the nation will invest $24 trillion in new residential construction. We have an unprecedented opportunity to build the kind of housing we need in our communities, but only if we re-imagine the way we live together.

 

Don’t you think it’s time to get started?

 

Shall we put it to a vote?

This article, Don’t Railroad Taxpayers into Transit Subsidies, asserts that “…no rail line should be designed or constructed unless approved by majority vote at the ballot box.”

Good idea. After all, this is a democracy, right?

So the next logical step here is to make sure that a majority of the public is on board with any significant investment in new infrastructure. That would mean putting any new roads up to a vote, too. After all, it’s only fair.

Luckily, we do live in a democracy and we all do get to vote. But some people aren’t too keen on letting us vote on the issues that matter most to us.  In the last legislative session of the Georiga General Assembly, approval of a referendum on a consitutional amendment for a new transportation funding source failed.

A new survey by the Transit Planning Board indicates that there may be more interest in public transportation in the Atlanta region than many choose to believe.

Given the staggering growth projections for this region, given the aging of the population and their future transportation needs and given that we are, today, gridlocked, the least state leaders could do is allow citizens to choose whether or not they want to pay for transit services.

That’s just the bare minimum. That’s just a start.

Eventually, the folks who blocked the vote on the transportation sales tax may want to start thinking about how we’ll get around 50 years from now.

How do you envision the Atlanta region’s transport system 50 years from now?

It’s such a pretty day, let’s walk.

You can get anywhere in Atlanta now, without having to drive.

Short walks and bicycle trips lead to local transit stations that are surrounded by restaurants, coffee shops, townhomes, offices and grocery stores.

After a short wait, we hop onto a light-rail car and are whisked away into a network that links Lawrenceville to the downtown Marietta square, Lovejoy to Kennesaw, Palmetto to Chattanooga, UGA to GSU.

The epicenter of this network is a bustling live-work-play station that serves buses, pedestrians, commuter rail, MARTA, light rail, bicycles and every other mode of transportation that keeps Atlanta seamlessly moving.

Every day, Atlanta’s workforce travels side-by-side with conventioneers and tourists through this portal. The theater and galleries are packed and the restaurants are great. The nightlife doesn’t stop.

Above the shops, a new hotel – a twisting skyscraper of steel and glass –connects to the Georgia World Congress Center and CNN Center. There’s a pedestrian walkway that leads to Marietta Street and the thriving Fairlie-Poplar and Luckie Street districts.

 

From here, we can go anywhere.

That’s one vision of the future.

What’s yours?

 

Development and Climate Change

Georgia has grown and benefited from automobiles and associated development for over 40 years.While this growth has led to prosperity, it has also led to development patterns that induce automobile dependency and greenhouse gas emissions that will have a negative impact on our future.In fact, a new study has labeled Georgia and other southern states among the worst in the US for creating these emission inducing development patterns.

ULI, Smart Growth America, and other organizations recently summarized existing research in a report entitled Growing Cooler. In it, they determine that development and traffic patterns are major contributors to climate change. 

The good news is that state and local governments in Georgia can impact greenhouse gas emissions by making decisions regarding land use policies and policies that lead to cleaner fuels and vehicles.

We can no longer ignore that our development patterns are a major problem for our state’s future. Some cities in the state are already taking action by signing the US Mayor’s Climate Protection Agreement. Mayors for the cities of Alpharetta, Athens, Atlanta, Augusta, Decatur, East Point, Macon, and Tybee Island have signed on to the agreement. These mayors represent 910,726 people, or roughly 9.6% of the sate’s population.

Though these eight cities are taking action to ensure that our state has a sustainable long term future, Georgia may already be a decade behind other states with regard to responding to climate change. And as a coastal state, this should worry us.

Under the Georgia constitution, local governments have substantial authority to guide land use and future development. It is time for local governments to start making land use decisions with our 50-year future in mind.