Happy Black History Month! January may have been the longest year, sorry, month ever. There are plenty of places to doomscroll. We all know the state of things in this country right now. I’ll just say this – take care of yourself while staying vigilant. Take care of your families. Focus on the positives and things that you can control.
The Urban Connector monthly newsletter looks back on the best of the previous month as well as ways to get involved in the coming month. Please make sure you sign up below to have these delivered straight to your inbox and follow on YouTube, Twitter, BlueSky Social, and Instagram.
January Content
Centennial Yards Construction Progress Flyover. Centennial Yards is really starting to take shape as we enter the year before the World Cup.
ATL SNOW. After a 7 year drought, we got snow twice within a two week period. The sights did not disappoint.
Atlanta Can’t Afford to Punt on Beltline Rail Part 6 – Ensuring Future Success. Examining the steps we need to take to improve the current streetcar and bridge the gap between Downtown and the Beltline.
Urban Thoughts: Too small for an article, too big to miss
- Atlanta loves a nice day! The amount of people outside today made me feel so alive. Much needed after the January we had.
- I find the whole “I miss the old Atlanta” discourse really weird to be honest. Outside of cheaper housing, which is the case for every single city in this country, I can’t think of much that was better 20 years ago when we moved here. I think most of the discourse is just based on vibes and memories of easier times when we were younger. Or maybe it’s people who just flat out hate cities. There was no Beltline. Midtown wasn’t the vibrant, walkable district it is now. There were barely any walkable neighborhoods. There were no bike lanes. I could go on and on. As I always say – A CITY THAT ISN’T EVOLVING IS A CITY DYING.
- Black windows really make all the difference.
- Check out this list of Black Urbanists that we should all know.
- Neighborhood groups as constructed are one of the worst things about Atlanta. Mostly, they’re just NIMBY coddles. They try to cover their exclusionist way of thinking by claiming to “protect” “their” neighborhoods in the name of “character”, “traffic” or “caring about the environment.” In reality, it’s just a cover-up for deeply rooted racism and selfishness and a weapon to keep anyone new out and artificially inflate property values. The all out assault on Plan A and disrespect toward people who support the plan for a better Atlanta for everyone was a really jarring welcome to my neighborhood when joining my first neighborhood meeting in December. I guess 10 people in each neighborhood get to try to speak for everyone and other views aren’t welcome. We’re seeing this play out in many neighborhoods through misleading social media posts and somehow they always seem to have the media’s ears too. We need more level-headed, forward thinking people involved at the neighborhood level. Get the facts about Plan A.
Developments that Excited Me
It’s honestly hard to be excited about anything in the planning stages right now with the pending economic disaster, but here are a few.
The Future of MARTA is here! (Kinda). MARTA showed off the first of their new train cars at last week’s state of MARTA address. While they specifically mentioned BRT, Clifton, Campbellton and other projects there wasn’t a single mention of Beltline Rail.
New Urban Bikeway Design Guide. Never stop learning!
Get Involved, Atlanta!
| Date | Event | Notes |
| 2/3 | City Council | 1:00 PM |
| 2/5 | Plan A Preview Adoption and Implementation | 5:30 PM |
| 2/10 | Housing Commission | 10:00 AM |
| 2/10 | Zoning Committee | 11:00 AM |
| 2/12 | Transportation Committee | 10:00 AM |
| 2/17 | City Council | 1:00 PM |
| 2/24 | Housing Commission | 10:00 AM |
| 2/24 | Zoning Committee | 11:00 AM |
| 2/26 | Transportation Committee | 10:00 AM |
| 3/3 | City Council | 1:00 PM |
Raleigh folks, make sure you’re keeping up to date with the great people at Raleigh Forward, WakeUP, Oaks and Spokes and The Downtown Raleigh Community.
What I’m working on this month (and probably later)
- Updates to earlier drawings of the Reconnecting Communities sketches
- The Enigma of North Hills video
- Beltline Construction Progress Drone Flyovers
- More suburban spotlights
- Beltline Rail Part 6
- “ChoseLINE” development idea
I’m sure this newsletter will evolve as time goes on. Comments or suggestions? Let me know!
Phil Veasley is a Professional Engineer and CNU-Accredited Professional member working to design safer multimodal infrastructure in cities throughout the US.
My goal is to create cities that are safe and effective for all people to move about outside of cars. To achieve that we have to focus on creating equitable, dense, and vibrant cities full of walkable neighborhoods with a various mix of housing choices, schools, restaurants, and services. We cannot have safe multimodal infrastructure without the density to support it and we cannot have equitable density without safe multimodal infrastructure. Outside of designing safe streets, my passions are sketching ideas for infill neighborhoods, floor plans, urban photography, and exploring our cities on foot or bike. Please check out the menus above for all of my ideas and also check out my YouTube, Instagram, BlueSky Social, and Twitter accounts.
Opinions and insights are my own and are not representative of my employer or any organization.
Phil Veasley 