I’ve been thinking a lot about change this summer — what it looks like, who drives it and how cities can listen better.
As a Gen Z Atlantan and a graduate student in urban studies, I’ve spent time studying the systems that shape our cities. But I’ve also been talking to the people who live in them, especially my peers, to understand what they actually want from the places they call home.
Atlanta was recently ranked by WalletHub as the best place to start a career. But it’s not just about jobs. Generation Z is looking for something deeper: affordability, walkability, green space, safety, community and culture. We’re not just thinking about where to work; we’re asking: Can we thrive here? Can we belong?
To dig deeper, I reached out to my peers via Instagram. I asked a simple question: “What do you want to see more of in your city?” The responses were thoughtful and often urgent.
“More public transportation, rooftop bars, lol,” Kennedy, who lives in Atlanta, said via text. “Transit,” echoed my co-intern Asia. Toya, from Boston, asked for “smoother roads and cleaner streets.” Natalie called for “accessible and free community events.” These aren’t just wish-list items; they reflect how Gen Zers experience urban life and what we believe cities should offer everyone.
Themes emerged quickly — a desire for safe, clean public spaces, better infrastructure and more reliable ways to get around. Toy “Nicer aesthetics in lower-income neighborhoods really do matter; it’s tied to mood. I learned that in psych class,” Toya added. These comments show that we’re thinking holistically about mental health, community, equity, and joy.
To put these personal insights into conversation with broader trends, I interviewed three local leaders who work closely with Gen Z issues and urban change.
Perry Ardell is the founder of “The Urban Atlanta,” a digital platform on Instagram and TikTok. He posts short-form videos about Atlanta’s new developments, adaptive reuse and civic issues that young residents care about.
When I asked what he’s hearing from young people, he said, “A lot of people just don’t know what’s going on… They feel a little bit like left behind or confused about it.”
For Ardell, the bigger issue is civic access. “You don’t know what you don’t know,” he said. “If you don’t know the development is happening until the fence is up, then it’s too late to shape it in any way.”
Ardell pointed to downtown Atlanta and the Centennial Yards project as examples of missed potential. “Downtown… has been sort of an area that has been neglected,” he said. “This project has the potential to bring housing, retail, entertainment and foot traffic back to an area that should be the heartbeat of the city.” Still, he added, “I wish that a bigger component of that was homeownership.”
As he put it, young people want “more third spaces — more places where people can safely gather. More built environment for people, as opposed to, say, for cars.”
Alex Ip is the founder and editor of “The Xylom,” a nonprofit journalism outlet centering Asian-American voices, covering science and environmental issues in the American South and Global South. Based in Atlanta, Ip has spent years thinking about infrastructure, freedom, and how cities shape people’s lives.
“Gen Z cares deeply about movement and access,” Ip said. “Walkability, transit, biking, they’re all ways of creating freedom.” But he also noted: “Sometimes people just want to exist anonymously in a city without being watched. That’s freedom, too.”
He expressed concern about the lack of local environmental accountability. “We’re the largest metro area in the Southeast,” he said, “and yet we have very few environmental or climate reporters. That’s not sustainable.” He added: “The question becomes, how do we build accountability? If you have all the amenities, but you don’t have the people who are reporting on why the amenities are there and who they’re actually serving?”
Ip said Gen Z is less interested in flashy innovation and more focused on results: “We just want American governments to learn from other places that have done things right.” He elaborated: “The real bold and transformative thing that could happen to American cities… is that elected officials and civic leaders have the humility to learn, to not reinvent the wheel.”
Munir Meghjani is a civic leader, investment advisor, and board member of Atlanta Way 2.0, an initiative seeking to strengthen civic engagement. Though not a member of Gen Z himself, he works closely with young leaders across the city.
“Every generation stands on the shoulders of the generation that comes before it,” he said. “Your generation is in this kind of flashpoint moment… because there’s so much information that you’re having to digest and try to comprehend.”
He believes Gen Z is developing civic awareness earlier than previous generations. “We’re starting to see it as early as middle school and high school,” he said. “You’re empowered by the knowledge you [Gen Z] have and the capacity you’re getting quicker than we [Millennials] did.”
Still, he acknowledged this can cause friction. “My generation is like, ‘Oh crap,'” he laughed. “And I think that the way that folks always call things radical, it’s often just because it’s unknown or because it’s right.”
Meghjani said it’s not enough to include Gen Z voices symbolically. “We need to go out of our way to really listen to what they’re saying and put growth behind that voice,” he said. “Not to just be, you know, kind of heard in a room and then moved on to, but really taking cautious efforts to invest in and listen to it.”
He also warned about the outsized role of money in local elections. “It’s very rare in Atlanta that someone who didn’t outraise their opponent wins,” he said. “Just because you outraise someone doesn’t mean you have more support.”
As our generation finishes school and enters the workforce, we’re looking for cities that don’t just accommodate us but actively include us. We’re organizing, showing up and imagining new ways of living together. And we’re asking city leaders to stop designing top-down and start building with us in mind.
The call now is not just to hear Gen Z but to trust us. As Meghjani put it: “The impact of what’s happening now is going to be significantly more devastating to your generation than it was to the generations that came before. So, your response is bigger. And it should be.”
Let us know what you want to see from our city in the coming years. You don’t have to be from Gen Z to let us know what is most important to you.
This summer, Atlanta Way 2.0 and SaportaReport are partnering on an initiative to strengthen the civic fabric of greater Atlanta through journalism. We have two amazing interns who will share their journey in our weekly column.
Interesting, I did not hear one word about sustainability, a matter that obviously will impact younger people more than older. I think sustainability is portrayed too much as an academic demand by those trying to avoid a distopian future. The reality is sustainability can be experiential and aesthetic as well. Several examples; electric everything, not just vehicles, are not simply better for the environment, they are far quieter. Placing utilities below grade not only reduces power outages (which it does) it also looks better and spares street trees to grow unencumbered by the infamous v notch scalping which is the alternative. Speaking of trees, they not only reduce the urban heat island they look great as one is taking a stroll around the city. Altering zoning to encourage more “five minute communities” is not simply energy and land efficient it is more sociable. The later is crucial for a society that has ironically become more socially isolated, with the rise of social media. One supposes we need to learn to couch our concepts in a more scientific manner for city hall, but in a more aesthetic manner for city streets.