By Brent Macon, host of ‘Macon Atlanta’
I’ve come to believe that if we don’t consciously choose how we want to live, capitalist market forces will help decide it for us automatically. That doesn’t always serve our highest and best interests.
That dynamic is what makes the AI moment so compelling. Here comes a game-changing technology that could alter the nature of how we work and relate; what do we actually want it to help us do? If we don’t pick ‘live the good life’ — whatever that means to us — chances are we’ll just spin the hamster wheel faster and wind up working harder, not being happier.
The problem is, it’s hard to collectively choose what ‘the good life’ is at a societal level. There are too many countervailing forces for us to determine rules of the road and agreed-upon norms that are widely beneficial. No one ever really asks us how we want to live, who we want to be.
How can we better educate our children? How can we reverse trends of loneliness and become more connected? How should we approach reparations? What about physician-assisted suicide? Those types of questions have been gnawing at me for years.
I decided to launch a writing project called “100 Atlanta Coffees” — I committed to meeting with 100 leaders from business, government, nonprofit, the arts, and religion at local coffee shops to learn how they perceive modern challenges and opportunities and how the AI era influences their work. I typed up summaries and reflections; each conversation was an effort to increase understanding.
Through that project, I met Maria Saporta and learned about Atlanta Way 2.0.
Atlanta Way 2.0 is a rare opportunity — a chance for engaged, dedicated, ordinary Atlantans to ask ourselves what we believe would be true for the highest and best manifestation of our city, and then commit to living out that vision.
We know what can happen when we let modern cultural habits and market forces dictate our way of living automatically. We get stuck in our phones, buried in our laptops. We lose a sense of place. The algorithms serve us stories emphasizing our differences and reinforcing the things we have to fear. Culture is what suffers, and community is what disappears.
I’ve felt this personally. The tech startup I previously led was fully remote, and there were many days I didn’t leave my home office. Even on days I was doing collaborative work I was excited about, I still had this odd feeling of placelessness and disconnection. It’s the opposite of the feeling of being plugged into the community I experience on Sundays, biking through Atlanta from the church at St. Luke’s to brunch at MetroFresh. It feels better to be a part of the local fabric.
It takes intention and commitment to actually live our ideals. I’m trying to do it through my work as a small business owner that is deliberately community-oriented. I’m also working on a podcast project where I meet with guests in-person. I believe it’s important that we actually know the people around us.
I believe a forgotten truth is that we share far more similarities and longings than we do differences. There is a common set of desires that characterize a great city to enjoy the good life, one in which you can:
- Have promising economic opportunity
- Keep your family safe
- Feel part of an authentic community
- Give your children a world-class education
- Experience the best of arts and culture
- Become whatever you desire professionally, regardless of the zip code, racial makeup, or ancestral lineage of the family you were born into
Atlanta Way 2.0 can be about articulating and then pursuing what we long for in the ways that we live and relate to one another, calling us toward the Beloved Community that is our city’s north star. As our population growth continues unabated, Atlanta Way 2.0 can be a vehicle for us to know and be known while honoring the cultural heritage that made the city worth moving to in the first place.
Atlanta Way 2.0 transcends one faith tradition or race, but requires participation from all in order to build a truly representative fabric of the city. It requires an intimate understanding of the cultural and economic past, particularly Atlanta’s history of slavery, bi-racial leadership, and enduring inequality.
At the end of the day, Atlanta Way 2.0 is an appeal to the best of our natures and our belief in what could be possible for our city – trusting that the beloved community can only be realized in a place where we actually know our neighbors and are involved in advancing communal causes we believe in. It is only possible in a city where we first care enough about the good life to define it and then have the courage and skill to live in a way that realizes it.
Plus, it’ll be really fun to build it together.
Brent Macon is a small business owner, investor, and podcast host. He owns The Little Gym of Dunwoody which opens in September, 2024. He hosts the podcast ‘Macon Atlanta’ which explores big questions, bold ideas, and better living with inspiring Atlantans. He is the father of two wonderful little girls and enjoys running and tennis. He was born in Columbus, Ga., grew up primarily in Winston-Salem, N.C., and moved to Atlanta after college in 2012.
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