No sidewalk, no bike, no MARTA but we love Atlanta!
As I wrote last night, Maria Saporta’s questions at Tuesday’s mayoral candidates forum shed much-needed light on who the candidates are.
Not what they say, what they DO.
And to recap, they pretty much live outside of the core of the city in subdivisions or suburban areas.
In fact, City councilwoman Mary Norwood said she lives on a three-quarter acre plot with a creek in Buckhead. She later said there’s not much suburban territory in the city.
I would say wherever you have three-quarter acre plots, you have suburbia.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that!
Atlanta is a city with incredibly varied topography.
But I would posit that the city is struggling to be a city, and that it’s made some great strides toward filling in the areas that have been staked out as urban strongholds.
And so I just wonder how committed one would be to that movement if one lived in a subdivision or a suburban neighborhood.
Because it means that none of these candidates did what I did — which was specifically stake out a neighborhood, a block and a house that would allow me to walk to coffee shops, retail stores, restaurants, transit and parks.
They also don’t appear to take MARTA regularly. Maria asked them when was the last time they took MARTA.
I sat there in the auditorium at the Atlanta Regional Commission and answered for myself: Yesterday.
But the candidates had much vaguer answers.
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Would-be mayors to attract young folks by….
As I mentioned Wednesday, I attended the mayoral forum held earlier this week at Park Tavern.
An audience member asked how the candidates proposed to attract and keep young professionals here.
That’s a topic that interests me because I think smart growth is inextricably woven into the desires of today’s young professionals.
Most of the candidates glossed over smart growth, but to be fair, they said the city will attract and retain young professionals only when it functions properly, and when it’s safe.
I know the city needs to function properly and I know it needs to be safe.
But I don’t think people from around the world move to New York each year because it’s safe or because city government there functions properly.
They move there because the city is exciting, and because it overflows with things to see and do, and with places to congregate and share ideas. People move there because the pace of life is fast — as fast as a speeding subway car that can take you to every corner of the city.
If you’ve read this blog for a while, you’ll know that I like to quote statistics from RCLCO, a real estate firm that has conducted lots of research into what baby boomers and members of Generation Y (people born between 1979 and 1996) want out of their communities.
So please indulge me while I repeat: 77% of Generation Y plan to live in an urban core, according to a report released in March by RCLCO (which has offices in Atlanta).
Why does this matter? Because there are 80 million people in Generation Y.
How big is that? BIGGER THAN THE BABY BOOMER GENERATION
As I said yesterday, the one candidate who consistently mentioned streetcars and bike lanes at the forum was Glenn Thomas, who may just be the least likeliest to win the election. (Interestingly, most of the candidates mentioned the Beltline, but did no more than mention it.)
I’m not saying safety and competence are unimportant. Of course they are important!
But we have a chance to attract young professionals here and most of them don’t plan to be stuck on I-85 every morning.
E Pluribus Unum
A month or so ago, I posted my vision of development in Atlanta via a video clip of an old Robin Williams comedy routine.
I fantasize that it would be great if we could push all of Atlanta’s city neighborhoods together and make one good city.
In the 1980s, Williams joked about how men, during intercourse, were always pushing women’s breasts together “to make one good one.” (See the jump for the video clip).
I was reminded of this metaphor last night at a mayoral forum that was held at the Park Tavern.
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