Modular homes can help solve Atlanta’s housing affordability crisis

April 22, 2019, 4:46 pm/1 Comment

Longtime Atlanta business leader – Cecil Phillips – has a solution to the city’s affordable housing crisis. Modular housing.Make no mistake. This is not your grandfather’s mobile home. The modular homes being proposed and developed by Phillips match the quality and amenities of new home construction – except they can be built much more quickly and cost significantly less money.

Read more →

Atlanta – be proactive, not reactive – in building airport relationships

April 15, 2019, 2:56 pm/2 Comments

The city of Atlanta dodged a bullet when the 2019 state legislature failed to pass a bill to either takeover Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport or to create a legislative oversight committee to oversee the airport’s operations.Even Gov. Brian Kemp, in comments before the Rotary Club of Atlanta on April 8, seemed to breathe a sigh of relief when asked about the airport issue..

Read more →

Opening up Peachtree Street to people rather than cars

April 8, 2019, 6:18 pm/0 Comments

Atlanta Streets Alive is helping change how we view our city’s streets.More than 120,000 Atlantans turned out on Sunday for the Atlanta Streets Alive along Peachtree Street from south downtown to 16thStreet.It was the perfect opportunity to test out a proposal by the City of Atlanta to reimagine three key blocks of Peachtree Street – from Margaret Mitchell Square to Baker Street.

Read more →

City and APS launching a pilot program to turn school lands into public parks

April 1, 2019, 6:13 pm/3 Comments

It’s such a simple notion.Atlanta can greatly add to public green space and parks by partnering with the Atlanta Public Schools to open up school property to the public.The idea is getting traction in Atlanta. The city of Atlanta, the Trust for Public Land, the Urban Land Institute-Atlanta and the Atlanta Public Schools are about to launch a pilot program that would welcome the public to use school grounds after hours and on weekends.

Read more →

Leadership in Atlanta continues to change and evolve

March 25, 2019, 6:40 pm/10 Comments

In the 1960s, a small group of about a dozen white businessmen held a tight grip on power in Atlanta.

That group included Robert Woodruff of the Coca-Cola Co., the top Atlanta bankers of the day – Mills B. Lane of Citizens & Southern; Billy Sterne from Trust Company Bank; James D. Robinson Jr. of First National Bank; Jack Tarver of the Atlanta Journal and the Atlanta Constitution; Atlanta Mayor Ivan Allen Jr. (who ran the office supply business started by his father); Larry Gellerstedt Jr. of Beers Construction; the top executives of Southern Bell, Georgia Power, Atlanta Gas Light among others.

Read more →

‘The Stitch’ seeks to bridge the divide created by the Downtown Connector

March 4, 2019, 4:19 pm/2 Comments

Ever since the Atlanta region began carving the city apart with highways in the 1950s and 1960s, civic leaders have explored ways to reconnect the disjointed areas by bridging over our interstates.In 1981, the late Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson was about to end his second term in office. President Jimmy Carter, who had just lost re-election, was looking for the right place to build his presidential library.

Read more →

E-scooters and bicycles need their own lanes in Atlanta

February 25, 2019, 5:14 pm/10 Comments

Move over automobiles. People are taking over.

In the central areas of Atlanta, a phenomenon of “micro-mobility” is transforming the way people are getting around.

E-scooters, one-wheelers, Segways, electric bicycles and regular bicycles (devices that usually travel at less than 15 miles an hour) are demanding their fair share of the street.

Read more →

Special Atlanta moments with two music masters – Itzhak Perlman and Gary Brooker of Procol Harum

February 18, 2019, 6:26 pm/3 Comments

Two 73-year-old musicians graced town over the weekend – performing in new venues – and proving that music bridges over generations and locations.

Itzhak Perlman, the internationally-renowned violin virtuoso, performed at the Sandy Springs Performing Arts, on Saturday evening. And the next night, Procol Harum’s Gary Brooker and his band performed at the City Winery next to Ponce City Market.

Read more →

An open letter to Georgia Gov.-elect Brian Kemp

January 7, 2019, 7:40 pm/16 Comments

As you prepare to step into the governor’s office, you stand at a crossroads.

Will you be a governor who  embodies the image you presented during the primaries – a gun-toting, anti-immigration, pro-religious liberty leader who divides our state?

Or will you be a unifying force who appeals to Georgia’s demographic diversity, its rural and urban areas as well as someone who will nurture economic development in all corners of the state?

Read more →

New Westside greenspace shows potential for expanded Atlanta Waterworks Park

December 3, 2018, 9:17 pm/3 Comments

In a wonderful beginning, Atlanta welcomed its newest green space on Sunday – a 4.5 acre site that offers dramatic views of the city’s skyline.

The new greenspace is a result of the persistent hard work by a grassroots community group – Friends of Atlanta Westside Park and the Upper Westside Improvement District – to clear the overgrown land from brush, weeds and dead trees and create a park-like setting at 17th Street and Northside Drive.

Read more →

Saying good-bye to a grand old tree

November 26, 2018, 5:38 pm/23 Comments

For years, my neighbor, Ingrid, and I would take our dogs at the break of dawn to walk around the lakes at Piedmont Park.

It was a tradition we enjoyed – even on the coldest day of the year when a local television station interviewed us wondering why we were out walking on such a cold morning.

Read more →