By Guest Columnist MIKE DOBBINS, a Georgia Tech professor of architecture and planning who also served as the city of Atlanta’s commissioner of planning, development and neighborhood conservation from 1996 to 2002 In a recent column, Maria Saporta attributed Atlanta’s ...

By Guest Columnist RODNEY STRONG, chairman of Griffin & Strong, a law and public policy consulting firm who graduated from Morehouse College in 1976 with an undergraduate degree in political science A confluence of events made ...

By Guest Columnist BRIAN BARTH, co-founder and head environmental consultant of Urban Agriculture, Inc., an Atlanta-based design firm Just north of downtown Decatur, a two-year long campaign to prevent metro Atlanta’s next Walmart-anchored development from breaking ground hangs ...

By Guest Columnist TEDRA CHEATHAM, executive director of the Clean Air Campaign The two storms that hit metro Atlanta over the last three weeks effectively shut down the city’s transportation for four or five days. While politicians and ...

By Guest Columnist JAY SILVERMAN, senior associate at Lord Aeck Sargent and president of the Atlanta Chapter of the American Institute of Architects As the current president of AIA’s Atlanta, I have heard many concerns from ...

By Guest Columnist ALAN ESSIG, executive director of the non-profit, non-partisan Georgia Budget and Policy Institute The good news for Georgia is the state’s economy continues to recover from the recent recession and state revenues are heading in ...

By Guest Columnist CASSIUS BUTTS, administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration – Region IV Georgia is on my mind. My late father, Courtlandt Sr., was a Vietnam veteran and an aerospace engineer; and my mother, Barbara Ann, ...

By Guest Columnist VALERIE JACKSON, wife of the late Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson, is a principal of Jackmont Hospitality Inc. and former host of NPR's "Between the Lines" Maynard Jackson left the hospital where his first child had ...

By Guest Columnist RAY CHRISTMAN, senior vice president of the Mid South Division for the Trust for Public Land Metropolitan Atlanta is going through what might be called an era of de-regionalization. This is the best way ...

By Guest Columnist CHARLES WHATLEY, managing director of UurbanIS USA, an advisory firm focused on Public-Private Partnerships In a globally competitive marketplace – inside or outside the perimeter or across the river – are nearly irrelevant designations. It is ...

By Guest Columnist JIM DURRETT, executive director of the Buckhead Community Improvement District Last month the Buckhead Community Improvement District, or “CID,” now 14 years old, celebrated 10 continuous years offering free bus service for workers, residents and ...

By Guest Columnist CHARISSE WILLIAMS, president of Young Audiences, a division of the Woodruff Arts Center In December 2012, I received a message on Facebook from a young man my mother had taught in 4th grade in Chicago over ...

By Guest Columnist JENNIFER WILSON, environmental mediator and consensus builder with Mellifera Mediation, LLC Members of the Community Benefits Plan Committee learned Nov. 20 that a draft version of a redevelopment plan for neighborhoods surrounding the ...

By Guest Columnist NATHANIEL SMITH, founder and chief equity officer of the Partnership for Southern Equity The divide between those who have ‘always had’ and the ones who have ‘never had’ is a national problem. But nowhere is it ...

By Guest Columnist MELONIE THARPE, the EcoDistrict coordinator at Sustainable Atlanta Ever heard of an EcoDistrict? If not, you are not alone. This Portland-originating term refers to a new neighborhood-level approach to sustainable development that integrates building and infrastructure ...

By Guest Columnist MAYNARD EATON, communications director for SCLC who also moderator, executive editor and co-owner of "NEWSMAKERS" Live/Journal in Atlanta Atlanta is nationally known for its unprecedented string of black mayors, its iconic roster of civil rights leaders, ...

By Guest Columnist DAVID EMORY, a transportation planner who is president of Citizens for Progressive Transit Citizens for Progressive Transit has been a supporter of the Atlanta Streetcar project since it was just a line on a map, and ...

By Guest Columnist TODD WILKINSON, author of the new book: “Last Stand: Ted Turner’s Quest to Save a Troubled Planet” Ted Turner: Liberal or Conservative? Think hard before you reply. Did you know that back in the late 1980s, ...

By Guest Columnist JIM KEGLEY, president and CEO of U.S. Micro — the four-year presenting sponsor of Art on the Atlanta BeltLine Study after study confirms what we instinctively know: talent – particularly young, mobile talent – is ...

By Guest Columnist MIKE DOBBINS, professor of planning at Georgia Tech’s College of Architecture and a former commissioner of planning and community development for the City of Atlanta Recent national studies have reminded us of Atlanta’s most pervasive, ...