By Guest Columnists BILL TUNNELL, JERRY SPANGLER and TOM WALSH, leaders of TSW, a planning, architecture and landscape architecture firm
Recently we had the pleasure of celebrating our firm’s 30th anniversary. It was both gratifying and humbling to look back on three decades of designing buildings, communities and green spaces, and reflect on how fortunate we have been to participate in what has arguably been a revolutionary time period in building design and placemaking.
Five recommendations could prevent another BP type of disaster from damaging the environment. Just five, if they were followed, according to a report released Tuesday by Oceana, the international ocean conservation group that has an office in Savannah and fights efforts to drill for oil off Georgia’s coast.
Frustration among Atlanta tree advocates over the two-year process of writing even the draft version of a tree protection ordinance is bubbling up amid the coronavirus-related shutdown of public conversation – and the clock is ticking toward a final vote on a new city code.
A Swedish songstress who’s to perform in Decatur in August has written a song about the global pandemic. Sofia Talvik has a special perspective, given her new song, her scheduled show in metro Atlanta, and her livestream Quarantine Concert series that on Sunday featured a virtual dinner party.
Carol Tomé’s appointment as CEO of Atlanta-based UPS adds to the growing, global movement around leadership metrics involving environment, social and governance issues. UPS has joined BlackRock and Goldman Sachs, two other companies that have taken advanced ESG positions this year.
A legal settlement over coal ash in North Carolina has resulted in the type of outcome Georgia environmentalists would like to reach here – excavation of coal ash from all of a power company’s unlined basins, and placement in an onsite lined landfill or recycled for industrial use.
Higher-income folks play a part in the affordable housing discussion because there is an unmet demand for rental apartments at their price points in at least one area that was studied – Buckhead.
The new mural that aims to connect the “past struggles, sacrifices and triumphs of our ancestors” stretches 130 feet along Joseph E. Boone Boulevard, welcoming visitors and residents to Atlanta’s historically black Vine City neighborhood.
Martin Luther King, Jr. called the Declaration of Independence a “promissory note” of freedom. Now, the very letter John Hancock sent to Georgia in 1776 announcing the former colonies’ independence from Great Britain has just sold at Sotheby’s.
By Guest Columnist LEIGH BURTON FINLAYSON, a resident of Grant Park
According to a report distributed by the Atlanta City Planning Department at an Atlanta City Council tree ordinance work session last autumn, 48,306 healthy trees were cut or cleared in the last six years within the city limits of Atlanta (Fiscal Year 2014 to 2019). The City blessed the cutting of these trees, issuing the necessary permits for their removal.
Sea level rise that a federal program predicts will inundate land far inland of Apalachicola Bay by 2060 could wipe away gains Florida hopes to gain in its water war with Georgia.
A new bridge across Peachtree Creek in Buckhead is the latest fruit of relations being woven by the South Fork Conservancy as it establishes an urban nature trail and park system that spans 25 acres.
Some Atlanta residents who track crime are returning their attention to a report that portrays Fulton County judges as lenient on repeat offenders. Early criticism of the report dwelled on a perceived shortcoming of not being robust enough to inform a meaningful conversation of sentencing reform.
By Guest Columnist TOM ODER, former news editor of The Atlanta Journal and author of ‘It’s Atlanta!’ when the city was awarded the Olympic Games
A new book about the Olympic Park bombing brings back memories about how the headline ‘It’s Atlanta!’ was created, a story told here for the first time in Saporta Report.
A report that criminal suspects facing more than 2,000 felony charges were released without bond last year in Fulton County – including 35 charges of child molestation and 11 charges of enticing a child for indecent purposes – has renewed calls for reform from members of the Buckhead Council of Neighborhoods.
By Guest Columnist REBECCA SERNA, executive director of Atlanta Bicycle Coalition
There are billions of dollars of street, highway, and transit projects coming to the City of Atlanta over the next few decades. But there is one project we could undertake right now. It would save lives and have minimal costs — setting a safer speed limit. We could follow the lead of other cities around the country and the world by setting a consistent citywide speed limit of 25 mph.
Editor’s Note: This is the first of four stories this week that look at topics and trends likely to appear on devices and news platforms in metro Atlanta in 2020.
Journalism that appears this year in metro Atlanta on screens small and large, on radio and in print, will inform and engage with elements that will be like fresh air to some readers – including more diversity in voices in stories, more podcasts, more visual stories, and more stories that percolate up from neighborhoods, according to a collection of predictions gathered by an affiliate of Harvard College.
By Guest Columnist DAVID L. SJOQUIST, professor of economics at Georgia State University
In 1936, Mississippi adopted what is claimed to be the first modern industrial tax incentive program, the objective being to lure northern manufacturing firms to Mississippi. Since then, tax incentive programs have mushroomed across the U.S. as local and state governments compete for development investment. This focus has expanded to include almost every larger development project.
A threatened federal program that has helped fund redevelopments throughout Atlanta has been taken off life support – for another year. The Flatiron Building, Christo Rey Atlanta High School, Grady Memorial Hospital and the Tyler Perry studio are among the projects Invest Atlanta has funded through the New Market Tax Credit program.
Sandy Springs’ city officials have called for mixed income housing development to be on the site of a zombie shopping center, and have hired a consultant to help devise a plan to with input and support from city residents. Mayor Rusty Paul has specifically warned against any outcome that looks anything like the sky-high housing market typical along the Atlanta BeltLine.
