Home » Posts

Posts

Posted inColumns, Michelle Hiskey & Ben Smith

Decatur illustrator finds patrons at $10 a pop

by Ben Smith

As technology makes creative work move faster, the careers of Deeds Davis and other illustrators have slowed way down. In a world of stock photography and digital design, fewer people seek intricate, original drawings by a human. Davis, whose art has always had a proletarian feel to it, found a small sweet spot in the tight art market and has some profit to show for it.

Last week, the Dallas, Texas, native launched a month-long exhibit of her latest sketches at the Java Monkey coffee shop in Decatur, where she works as a cook.

Posted inDavid Pendered

PEDS calls for safer pedestrian access to transit, provides toolkit for achievable safety upgrades

by David Pendered

A new report by PEDS calls on transportation planners to make pedestrian safety as important a goal as congestion relief, particularly near transit stops. The report also includes a toolkit for improving pedestrian safety near transit stops.

“We want safety to be a top priority, or as important as congestion relief,” Sally Flocks, PEDS president and CEO, said Sunday.

Flocks is slated to present the report Thursday to the ARC’s Transportation and Air Quality Committee. PEDS will ask ARC to conduct a pedestrian safety study. The Atlanta Regional Commission already is sensitive to the issue of pedestrian safety and now provides funding for last-mile connectivity efforts, Flocks said.

Posted inMaria's Metro

Atlanta BeltLine buries Peachtree Streetcar to favor other streetcar lines

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

Second part of a two-part series on current plans for the Atlanta BeltLine. Looking at the proposed phases of the Atlanta Streetcar

It was Friday, Nov. 15, 2002 at the annual meeting of the Midtown Alliance when guest speaker Andres Duany, the father of new urbanism, challenged Atlanta.

“Peachtree Street was created by the Streetcar,” Duany told the hundreds sitting at the Fox Theatre. “If you restore that pattern, it will restore the area immediately.”

Duany went on to say that Atlanta was unique because of Peachtree Street — no other city has such a well-recognized commercial corridor only a couple of blocks away from “pastoral” neighborhoods.

That simple challenge sparked a decade-long effort by hundreds of Atlanta’s civic and business leaders to establish a streetcar up and down our city’s signature street.

Posted inATL Business Chronicle, Maria's Metro

New Atlanta Braves stadium project in Cobb ‘ahead of schedule’

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

By Maria Saporta
Published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on March 7, 2014

The Atlanta Braves are so convinced they will meet their ambitious schedule of building a new stadium in Cobb by April 2017 that they have no Plan B.

“We have not thought about it,” said Mike Plant, executive vice president of business operations for the Atlanta Braves. “A hundred percent of our focus is building that stadium and playing there in April 2017. We are going to do what we said we are going to do. We said we are going to build a great ballpark and destination.”

On Nov. 11, 2013, the Atlanta Braves shocked both the city of Atlanta and the metro area when the baseball team announced it would be building a new $672 million ballpark in Cobb County with $300 million of it in public funds.

Posted inGuest Column

Atlanta’s income gap problem rooted in poverty, not in a lack of middle-class

by Teresa Johnston

By Guest Columnist MIKE DOBBINS, a Georgia Tech professor of architecture and planning who also served as the city of Atlanta’s commissioner of planning, development and neighborhood conservation from 1996 to 2002

In a recent column, Maria Saporta attributed Atlanta’s worst-in-class rankings for income disparity and social immobility to the post-Olympic period, which she characterized as one of “Atlanta’s Greatest Missed Opportunities.”

While I hesitate to challenge Maria’s wisdom, I must disagree with her conclusions both about why Atlanta has such income disparity and social immobility and with her characterization of the post-Olympic period as a missed opportunity.

Taking the latter first, she references the Renaissance Policy Board, which was convened by Mayor Bill Campbell and chaired by Coca-Cola CEO Roberto Goizueta to plan out Atlanta’s post-Olympic priorities and strategies.

Posted inDavid Pendered

A.D. King delegation to meet Queen of England at Nigeria’s celebration

by David Pendered

The Queen of England is slated to meet Martin Luther King Jr.’s sister-in-law during Nigeria’s centennial celebration next week in London.

Naomi Barber King is the widow of A.D. King, brother of the slain civil rights leader. She founded the A.D. King Foundation, which promotes a platform of non-violent social change that’s distinct from measures conducted in the name of the more famous civil rights leader.

Posted inLatest News

Morris Brown moves closer to getting Bankruptcy Court’s okay to sell land

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

By Maria Saporta

Morris Brown College, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in August, 2012, is shifting gears to try to keep operating.

It no longer is trying to package a development deal for the property it either owns or controls after at least two deals fell apart in the last year at the 11th hour.

On Thursday, lawyers for Morris Brown asked U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Barbara Ellis-Monro for permission to hire the real estate firm of Jones Lang LaSalle to help it sell either some or all of the 36-acre property along Martin Luther King Jr. Drive just west of where the new Atlanta Falcons stadium is being built.

Posted inATL Business Chronicle, Maria's Metro

Column: Junior Achievement Discovery Center planned in Gwinnett

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

By Maria Saporta
Published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on February 28, 2014

Just six months after the opening of Junior Achievement of Georgia’s successful Discovery Center in downtown Atlanta, a second center is being planned for Gwinnett County.

The new Discovery Center, which likely would open in August 2015 at the new comprehensive Gwinnett high school campus, would include a Finance Park and BizTown — similar to the real-world simulations at the Chick-fil-A Discovery Center at the Georgia World Congress Center in downtown Atlanta.

Posted inDavid Pendered

Free app provides riders with more information on transit arrival times

by David Pendered

A free app from researchers at Georgia Tech is the latest step toward providing transit passengers with the integrated information they need to know about the region’s public transit systems.

The app now provides arrival time for MARTA trains. It previously had provided arrival times for MARTA buses and Georgia Tech’s shuttles. Over time, developers plan to add arrival data for other transit systems in the Atlanta area.

Posted inLatest News

Arthur Blank and MLS commissioner welcome Atlanta’s appetite for soccer

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

By Maria Saporta

As 68,000 soccer fans filled the Georgia Dome with enthusiastic cheers Wednesday night, Arthur Blank was entertaining Don Garber, the commissioner of Major League Soccer in his suite during most of the scoreless match between Mexico and Nigeria.

It was not a casual sporting event for either of them. Blank, the owner of the Atlanta Falcons; and Garber are closing in on a deal for Blank to become a new franchise owner for a MLS team that would play in the new Falcons stadium that is supposed to open before the 2017 football season.

The sold-out Mexico-Nigeria match — a prelude the 2014 World Cup in Brazil — was yet another indicator of how Atlanta would welcome professional soccer.

Posted inDavid Pendered

Obama budget stiffs Savannah harbor, funds programs used for Atlanta Streetcar, BeltLine

by David Pendered

Gov. Nathan Deal on Tuesday was quick to jump on President Obama’s budget proposal for not including money to start the Savannah harbor deepening project.

But the Obama proposal does contain money for other transportation projects that may be of help in Georgia, particularly in Atlanta. Deal said the state will begin deepening the harbor with funds it already has set aside for the job.

Posted inATL Business Chronicle, Maria's Metro

Atlanta bids to be designated a ‘Global Smart City for Mobility’

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

By Maria Saporta
Published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on February 28, 2014

Atlanta is campaigning to become one of a handful of cities to be designated a Global Smart City for Mobility — a move that it hopes will catapult it among the world’s technology capitals.

A contingent of Atlanta mobility executives and economic development leaders were in Barcelona, Spain, from Feb. 24 to Feb. 27 attending the GSMA Mobile World Congress, the largest mobility summit in the world, attracting more than 70,000 people.

Posted inLatest News

Midtown Atlanta gets insider’s ideas on how to make the city lovable

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

By Maria Saporta

Cities can be fanciful and fun.

In fact, if we want our cities to be loved, they must spark our imagination, bring smiles to our faces, give us special memories we can keep forever.

That was the message that Peter Kagayama shared with members of the of the Midtown Alliance at its annual meeting on the morning of Feb. 26 at the Fox Theatre.

Kagayama, who is based in Tampa, is co-founder and producer of the Creative Cities Summit. He has written a book: “For the Love of Cities,” a guidepost for how cities can become more lovable.

Posted inMaria's Metro

Saving trees should be top priority in building the SW BeltLine corridor

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

First of a two-part series on current plans for the Atlanta BeltLine. This week: the Southwest leg.

Just for the record, I’m a huge fan of the Atlanta BeltLine and I’m a huge fan of transit.

That said, I also become somewhat irrational when I become aware of plans to cut down a significant number of trees in our city. It goes without saying that Atlanta is a beautiful city largely because of our extensive tree cover — an asset that is threatened on a continual basis.

One of the reasons I have been so enamored with the Atlanta BeltLine has been because it has been presented to us as an “Emerald Necklace” encircling our inner city — a linear park connecting larger urban parks.

So imagine my surprise, and dismay, when I recently walked the southwest corridor of the Atlanta BeltLine and realized that in one of the most forested parts of the 22-mile corridor, hundreds of trees — many of them mature trees — would be cut down to make room for a proposed transit line as well as the multipurpose trail.

Posted inDavid Pendered

Construction delays at Panama Canal could affect Savannah harbor project

by David Pendered

The $266 million that Georgia is setting aside for the planned deepening of the Savannah harbor is being protected by a proposed financial bailout of the Panama Canal expansion project.

The Savannah project is based on the premise that Savannah needs a deeper harbor to handle the bigger ships expected to transit the bigger Panama Canal. However, work on the canal resumed just last week – and only on a limited basis – after a two-week stoppage because of disagreement over $1.6 billion in cost overruns.

The entire budget for the canal’s expansion is $5.25 billion. The total cost now is forecast at nearly $7 billion, which is an increase of more than 30 percent above original projections.

Posted inTom Baxter

As water becomes more precious, a battle for control of the faucet

Avatar photo by Tom Baxter

You might say the politics of water is very fluid these days. There seems to be a gathering sense, here and elsewhere, that water policy is no longer as simple a matter as turning on a faucet. But the battle over who exactly controls this increasingly precious resource is still in its early stages.

In this year’s legislative session, that battle has centered around Senate Bill 213, Gov. Nathan Deal’s attempt to gain unprecedented power over the faucet in the Flint River basin. The bill would give the state the power to tell farmers when they could withdraw water from the basin, but what makes it controversial are the provisions which would give the state the additional power to “augment” the river’s flow with a stored supply of water in times of drought to protect endangered wetland species downstream.

It’s in that word “augment” where the real controversy begins.

Posted inColumns, Michelle Hiskey & Ben Smith

Out of the Box, It’s CardboardCon

by Ben Smith

While Mardi  Gras was breaking out in New Orleans last weekend, an anti-carnival with all the snazz of a paper box unfolded in Atlanta. Scores of cardboard-covered figures paraded across downtown Atlanta last Saturday night, attracting attention from conventioneers, bar-hoppers and others out for good time.

In case you missed it – chances are you’ve never heard of it – Saturday marked Atlanta’s fifth annual CardboardCon. Welcome to the antithesis of DragonCon, the world’s largest fantasy/sci-fi convention that brings tens of thousands of costumed conventioneers into downtown Atlanta on Labor Day weekend. CardboardCon draws them there by the tens in late February or early March in outfits repurposed from a product with 101 uses and its helpful sister, duct tape.

Gift this article