Peachtree Demonstration Project Creates Shared Space on Atlanta’s Signature Street By Kate Sweeney In this 9-minute listen, the What’s Next ATL podcast spent a morning out at the Peachtree Street Demonstration Project, which is testing how a three-block span of shared space for drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists works for all those groups. Listen here or wherever you get […]

By Kate Sweeney 43 leaders from metro Atlanta’s public, private, educational, and nonprofit spheres have been selected to participate in the 2021 Regional Leadership Institute (RLI) from the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC). Members of the 2021 RLI class will have the opportunity to dig into key regional issues during the week-long leadership development program, to be held […]

By Aixa Pascual Last year, Mamie Rogers and her husband, Star Lee, patched their leaky roof. The leak wouldn’t stop, and they had to add fresh patches earlier this year. Even then, water continued to seep through the roof of their southwest Atlanta home. The retired couple couldn’t afford a new roof, which they estimated […]

By Kate Sweeney The language we use to talk about a topic influences how we think about it. And with an entrenched issue like housing affordability, it also impacts the solutions we imagine are possible. On this episode of the What’s Next ATL podcast from the Atlanta Regional Commission, host Kate Sweeney talks with Dr. Tiffany Manuel […]

By Kate Sweeney These days, so many of us are looking to live in dynamic, pedestrian-friendly places, the kind where you don’t have to get in your car to do everything. But creating these communities can be difficult. That’s the challenge Atlanta Regional Commission’s Livable Centers Initiative (LCI) program is set up to address, awarding […]

How do we build communities that work for everyone—including our fast-growing 65+ population—when many of us don’t particularly want to think about aging at all, especially not our own? That’s the topic of this exhilarating 14-minute episode of the What’s Next ATL podcast from the Atlanta Regional Commission. Warning: It might make you excited about […]

If you’re a homeowner, much of your house’s value comes from the land it sits on. That’s the fact driving community land trusts, a strategy to fight gentrification that’s gaining traction across the county. This 15-minute episode of the What’s Next ATL podcast serves as an explainer — of community land trusts, and the legacy […]

By Paul Donsky It’s been over a year since so many of us left the office for the last time and set up shop in our living rooms, kitchens, bedrooms, and home offices. Now that COVID cases are on the wane as vaccinations pick up, organizations are thinking about returning to the office – and […]

By Paul Donsky Doug Hooker, who has served as Executive Director of the Atlanta Regional Commission since 2011, has announced that he will retire in March 2022. Hooker has led the agency through a dynamic period of growth and change. We recently sat down with him for a Q&A in which he reflected on his nearly 10 […]

Loneliness and social isolation were already widespread in older adults before COVID-19. We look at the reasons—and what we can do about it. By Kate Sweeney Retirement! Time to reconnect with family and friends, travel to destinations we’ve long dreamed of, and do that volunteer work we’ve been meaning to do, all while maybe sleeping […]