Category: Columns

By Guest Columnist JOE BEASLEY, director of human services at Atlanta’s Antioch Baptist Church North

PORT-AU-PRINCE — The stars in heaven over Haiti this week remind me of the strength of hope I have for the people of this island, just as the stars always have reminded me of hope during my 15-plus years as a volunteer servant in this country.

Our small mission to Haiti slept in a host home in Delmas, located between downtown Port-au-Prince and Pationsville. Well, we didn’t actually sleep in the home. Although I could have slept in the same beautifully appointed room where I’ve enjoyed countless comfortable nights over the years, our members decided to sleep on pads under the open sky with our awesome God as our watchman.

This sky and country is familiar to me. My work here

By Guest Columnist DENNIS CREECH,
executive director of the Southface Energy Institute

Did you know that Georgia leads the nation in green affordable housing?

Just last week, Global Green USA released its fifth green building rating summary of state qualified allocation plans (QAP) which guide the annual distribution of federal Low Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC) – a vital program that encourages developers to build affordable housing. And yet again, Georgia ranks at the top of the list, tied for first place with Connecticut!

Because of the outstanding efforts of the Georgia Department of Community Affairs (DCA), which is responsible for establishing the QAP for Georgia, our state has ranked at the top of the Global Green list for the past five years.

By Guest Columnist DICK ANDERSON, director of the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority

(This column is in response to last week’s Maria’s Metro Column: “If we can’t do it right, maybe we should put the brakes on new transportation funding.”)

As the General Assembly takes up again the issue of transportation funding, we begin with a clear path forward in terms of needed investment, strategies that would produce superior returns and a quantified view of growth in our gross domestic product (GDP), jobs and reduction in congestion that will result.

We have made a strong business case for transportation investment. With $65 billion in incremental investment over the next 20 years, the state of Georgia could realize $480 billion in GDP growth and 425,000 new jobs.

From my view, now is the time to press forward. So, I was puzzled by Maria Saporta’s recent suggestion that

By Guest Columnist ARNIE SILVERMAN, owner of Silverman Construction Program Management.

Parks promote. Parks transform. Parks stimulate. Parks sell.

You can see it in Centennial Olympic Park, which transformed a dangerous and derelict part of downtown Atlanta into a vibrant commercial center with a growing tourism and residential sector.

You can see it in Piedmont Park, a focal point for residents from all areas of the city who gather to enjoy its trails, playgrounds and nearby restaurants and shops. Piedmont Park is the back yard for the tens of thousands of new residents who populate Midtown’s high-rises and neighborhoods.

Never has the selling point of parks and other public

By Guest Columnist GEORGE DUSENBURY, executive director of Park Pride

Parks are the best of Atlanta; they are the worst of Atlanta. They are the foundations of community; they are the foundations of crime. They are the catalyst of economic development; they are the catalyst of middle-class flight. They are the epitome of excellence; they are the epitome of mediocrity. They promise everything before us; they promise nothing before us.

It all depends on how they are maintained.

As executive director of Park Pride, Atlanta’s nonprofit park and park advocacy group, I have seen in all corners of metro Atlanta how maintenance can make or

By Guest Columnist E. FRED YALOURIS, director of design for Atlanta BeltLine Inc.

I am often asked about my decision to move to Atlanta without a car, and, if there is time, I like to take the opportunity to bore my listener with the story of how I made this decision.

I had come to Atlanta a month before starting work at the BeltLine to attend a public meeting at City Hall. It was on a beautiful spring day, Saturday afternoon, May 2, 2008. The sun was shining, the outside temperature was 64 degrees, and you could smell the spring blossoms in the air.

It was such a nice afternoon, that, after an excellent public meeting, I decided to walk the nine or ten blocks up Peachtree to my hotel. To my naïve surprise, except

By Guest Columnist LYNNETTE YOUNG, CEO and executive director of Sustainable Atlanta

For the last 18 months, Sustainable Atlanta has engaged leaders and experts from Atlanta’s academic, business, governmental sectors and non-profits to work on updating Atlanta’s current building code to make the city a better place to live, work and play.

Unfortunately, the Atlanta City Council missed a tremendous opportunity by shelving the Atlanta Sustainable Building Ordinance (ASBO) during their last meeting as a Council on December 7, 2009.

By making the decision to not pass this piece of legislation that protects the health and welfare of all Atlantans, they have marred their legacy.

By Guest Columnist LAURA HEERY PROZES, AIA, executive co-chair of the Congress for the New Urbanism 18

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have tracked a virulent virus, spreading since the 1950’s, crossing borders and oceans, with host bodies adapting remarkably to this disease.

Americans have adapted to the imbedded foreign bacteria, unaware of the extent that lives and health are compromised. In fact, we have been living remarkably well with the virus, perhaps similar to how we integrate cancer, diabetes, asthma, hypertension into daily lives.

Symptoms from the virus are mundane, such as obesity, and other symptoms have new names, such as Nature Deficit Disorder. We have prostheses to offset the health and lifestyle limitations, elevators to avoid stairs, cars to our doorsteps.

By Guest Columnist State Sen. DOUG STONER (D-Cobb)

In little over a month, my fellow legislators and I will be returning to Atlanta to begin a new session under the Gold Dome. This will be my eighth session of representing my hometown of Smyrna and South Cobb County, including two in the House of Representatives and six in the Senate.

The coming session appears similar to my first session in 2003. Georgia was just beginning to recover from a recession, and revenues had dropped for 18 straight months. We had nearly exhausted our reserve funds and were facing a $600 million budget shortfall.

How did my fellow legislators, along with Gov. Perdue, confront this budget challenge in 2003? First, the new governor picked the most conservative of the three projected revenue estimates for the coming year. Second, the governor proposed a mixture of budget cuts and

By Guest Columnist HATTIE DORSEY, president of HBDorsey & Associates and former president of Atlanta Neighborhood Development Partnership (ANDP).

The AJC wrote an article last week about the “disaffected voters” – those who seem to believe that no matter who is elected in the current campaign, their quality of life will continue unchanged, if not ignored.

In mulling over this subject and thinking about last year’s national elections, I thought of Pearl Cleage’s poem, “I Speak Your Name”. My take on why disaffected voters feel the way they do is that they simply do not hear their name in the messages spoken by this year’s candidates.

A critical run-off election will take place on Dec. 1 for the Mayor of Atlanta and the City Council, and, this time, the national media is watching for the outcome. The turnout is again expected to be very low. And in