Did you send a greeting card to someone over the weekend to mark World Water Day? Probably not.
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Posted inMoments, Moments Season 2
Alicia Philipp’s Moment demonstrated how a mentor helps many others stand up – literally
By Chris Schroder
Alicia Philipp, president of The Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta, had her Moment 16 years ago when she spontaneously asked a question to a crowd of people and was surprised when nearly all of them stood up. That Moment taught her a lot about the value of mentorship and the special nature of her own mentor, Dan Sweat.
“I asked everybody in the audience who had been mentored by Dan to stand – not really knowing what the response would be,” she said.
Posted inMaria's Metro
As historic buildings disappear, Atlanta losing its sense of place
Atlanta can be such a disorienting city.
One day a building can be standing on a corner waiting for you like a old friend.
And the next day it’s gone. No warning. Just gone.
That’s what happened to me a few weeks ago when I was driving on Ponce de Leon Avenue going west towards Peachtree Street. A vacant lot at Juniper Street hit me in the face where a familiar building once stood.
The first office building ever designed by world-renowned architect I.M. Pei had vanished — just like that. Once again, Atlanta had erased an important part of its physical history with barely a whimper.
Posted inDavid Pendered
Richard Florida, Joel Kotkin duel as Georgia report presents sober outlook on labor economy, immigration
A recent report on Georgia’s economy fits right into a debate raging in real time between the urban theorists Richard Florida and Joel Kotkin.
Last week, the battle of titans spilled out in the “Daily Beast.” Kotkin started it with a piece headlined: “Florida Concedes Limits of Creative Class.” Florida fired back the next day under a headline that concluded: “Not So Fast, Joel Kotkin.”
Somewhere in the middle is an economic report on Georgia, which Tom Baxter brought to attention in saportareport.com. The report whispers (in comparison to the theorists) that the workers who farm and build, cook and clean – and perform other such “non-skilled” jobs – are essential to the keeping the state’s economy afloat.
Posted inLatest News
Atlanta-based global organizations to focus on water and sanitation April 9
By Maria Saporta
As evidence of Atlanta’s role as a convening place to work on global health issues, a major “World Water Day” conference is being held on April 9.
The event is being held to commemorate World Water Day — aimed at shining attention on how neglected diseases can be prevented with improvements in water, sanitation and hygiene.
The participants in the April 9 conference are a “who’s who” of Atlanta-based organizations, initiatives and professionals dedicated to improving the quality of water and sanitation around the world.
Posted inATL Business Chronicle, Maria's Metro
Global Cities Initiative: ‘City-states’ key to future economic growth
By Maria Saporta
Published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on Friday, March 22, 2013
The economic and political power of cities and metropolitan areas continues to grow as more and more people gravitate to urban areas — both in the United States and around the world.
Harnessing and leveraging cities’ economic potential holds the key to our ability to compete and thrive. And the world’s top cities, such as Atlanta, must find what makes them unique and distinct as they build their own regional economies.
Posted inGuest Column
A love-hate relationship with the recession teaches life-long lessons
By Guest Columnist HEATHER ALHADEFF, president of Center Forward, a woman-owned land-use and transportation consulting business
My incessantly analytical brain is ruled by logic. So, to me it just made sense — evolve or die on the proverbial vine. It did take me a while, however, to realize I was hating the very thing I should love.
This incredibly distressing recession required me to question all assumptions. In so doing, it prompted me to launch my own business, doing the work I love while creating more time for friends and family.
Posted inLatest News
Search for new Atlanta BeltLine CEO close to naming five finalists
By Maria Saporta
The search for a new president and CEO for the Atlanta BeltLine Inc. is heating up.
Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed said Friday morning that a group of nine finalists were interviewed this week for the job of overseeing the redevelopment of the 22-mile mostly-abandoned rail corridor that surrounds downtown Atlanta into a vibrant area of area of parks, trails, residences, retail, work spaces and eventually transit.
The BeltLine has been without a permanent leader since August when Brian Leary resigned amid controversy over some expenditures that had been charged to taxpayers.
Posted inEleanor Ringel Cater
‘Spring Breakers;’ ‘The Gatekeepers’ — two completely different movies
There are two movies opening this weekend, and I don’t want you to get them mixed up.
One is “Spring Breakers.” The other one is “The Gatekeepers.”
The first one is a “t-and-a” comedy (not necessarily intentional) about four girls in bikinis who get busted and end up working for James Franco.
I know. It also sounds awfully close to “Beach Blanket Butts.” However, the director is Harmony Korine who, if you haven’t already heard of him, specializes in the sort of calculated smut that’s supposed to be a turn-on in a forbidden-fruit sort of way.
Posted inDavid Pendered
MARTA, developers may start projects at three stations by early fall
Proposed developments at three MARTA stations are so hot that they could start in a matter of months, according to MARTA records.
The proposals involve the stations of Avondale, Chamblee and King Memorial. Each proposal has “advanced to the point of the board’s decision/action and could be put into action this summer or early fall,” records show.
MARTA can’t wait for a consultant to be hired in May to handle the proposals. Instead, MARTA seeks to hire a consultant to work on these projects over the next 60 to 90 days. Bids for the consulting position close March 25.
Posted inLatest News
Panama Canal chairman: Savannah needs to deepen its port for big ships
By Maria Saporta
Georgia needs to do all it can to deepen the Savannah port if it wants to remain a competitive.
That is the message that Roberto Roy, Panama’s Minister for Canal Affairs who is chairman of the Panama Canal Authority, delivered to Gov. Nathan Deal and Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed on Thursday afternoon.
“It is a critical issue for Georgia and for Savannah,” Roy said in an interview outside the Governor’s office. “The reason is that the shipping fleet is totally changing. It is not only a matter of the ships being bigger The key is that the most important variable is the fuel costs.”
Posted inLatest News
Community leaders want new stadium to improve their neighborhoods
By Maria Saporta
After the Atlanta City Council’s speedy 11-4 vote on Monday in support of the new Falcons stadium, the impacted neighborhoods had their turn on Wednesday evening.
The Northwest Community Alliance had a long-scheduled quarterly meeting to hear from Penny McPhee, president of the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation about its plans to work with the communities located around the stadium.
But the two-and-a-half hour meeting ended up being more about McPhee listening to the concerns, questions and ideas that community leaders had. And that had been McPhee’s intention all along.
Posted inDavid Pendered
ATL concessions: FAA closes inquiry, decides not to appeal GDOT’s rulings that helped four firms win contracts
The FAA’s review of concessions contracts at Atlanta’s airport has ended with no plan to appeal the matter to the U.S. DOT, the FAA announced Thursday.
The decision evidently means that the $3 billion concessions contracts signed in March 2012 by Mayor Kasim Reed will stand without further governmental inquiry.
Reed’s administration did not issue a statement, but did forward the FAA announcement 13 minutes after its release by the FAA. Reed and his administration had maintained throughout the contract process and subsequent review that the city’s process was above board and without reproach.
Posted inLatest News
Atlanta region to work on metro export plan with Brookings Institution
By Maria Saporta
Metro Atlanta leaders will seek to grow the region’s global business opportunities through a new initiative that was kicked off Wednesday by JP Morgan Chase and the Brookings Institution.
The Global Cities Initiative, which is part of a five-year, $10 million, multi-city effort ultimately will forge new city-to-city partnerships to create trade and economic relationships to prosper from the growing urbanization of the world’s population.
Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed said the initiative takes advantage of growing businesses through exporting and by recognizing that the “Made in USA” brand is becoming increasingly valuable in the world.
Posted inATL Business Chronicle, Maria's Metro
Column: Atlantans helping world’s poorest at Opportunity International
By Maria Saporta
Published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on Friday, March 15, 2013
Atlanta native Vicki Escarra, formerly the highest-ranking woman executive at Delta Air Lines Inc. as its chief marketing officer, introduced her newest cause — Opportunity International — at a reception at the Buckhead Club on March 11.
Posted inDavid Pendered
A relation between stadium deal and stalled MARTA bill? Who’s to say
There may be no relation whatsoever, but the plan to build a new Falcons stadium is moving forward and the proposed legislation to restructure MARTA and privatize some of its operations appears to be fading for the 2013 session.
Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed’s administration delivered a final deal within two months after receiving a troubled proposal from Gov. Nathan Deal. Reed’s team provided the $200 million in construction financing, plus somewhere around $100 million in public/private funds to fix up the area around the future stadium.
Rep. Mike Jacobs (R-Brookhaven) indicated Tuesday that he’s done about all he can to sweeten his team’s proposal to reorganize MARTA. Jacobs has offered to eliminate the privatization provision in House Bill 264 and to resolve in MARTA’s favor all but one concern MARTA has raised. Still, the bill is stalled in the Senate.
Posted inMoments, Moments Season 2
Dennis Creech’s Moment sparked a career that helped Atlanta’s brand as a green building leader
Dennis Creech, who today is the executive director and co-founder of Southface Energy Institute, was in graduate school training to be a systems ecologist when he had his Moment. Throughout his education in the 1970s, his focus had been aimed at improving environmental conditions, but it wasn’t until that day at Emory University that a, well, light bulb went off that pointed him in a unexpected direction.
As he was studying smog, acid rain, and even the water crisis of Atlanta, it dawned on Dennis that there was a common denominator to many of the threats to the environment’s health and sustainability – the consumption of energy.
Posted inLatest News
Atlanta City Council passes stadium deal; two approvals down, one to go
By Maria Saporta and Dave Williams
Despite pleas from constituents to slow down the train, the Atlanta City Council voted Monday evening 11 to 4 to approve a funding plan for a new $1 billion football stadium in downtown Atlanta.
The City Council vote, which did not go through the normal multi-week committee process, was pushed through on a super fast track on Monday after a six-hour meeting of the whole council.
That approval followed Friday’s unanimous vote by the Georgia World Congress Center Authority that endorsed the new retractable roof stadium for the Atlanta Falcons. Only one more governmental body is needed to approve the deal — the board of Invest Atlanta.
Posted inHome Mortgages, Thought Leader
The Housing Market in Retrospect
The National Association of Realtors recently produced a Market Pulse Survey that provides insight on consumers’ needs in retrospect from 2003 to 2011.
Posted inDavid Pendered
Metro Atlanta split in half by class; wealth creators reside in northside, say new studies by Richard Florida
Richard Florida’s latest research shows metro Atlanta has become a tale of two regions and likely will continue on that trajectory.
The wealth-generating creative region begins near downtown Atlanta and spreads north along Ga. 400 through Roswell, with outparcels scattered across mainly the northern suburbs. Future wealth generation seems most likely to occur in north Atlanta and close-in suburbs, in Florida’s scenarios.
Florida’s work seems to support policies such as efforts by ARC and its partners to promote community development around Atlanta’s airport and MARTA stations. Likewise with the community benefit agreements that are part of Atlanta’s requirements for supporting a new Falcons stadium.
