Holiday Season! We’ve made it to the final month of 2024. Hopefully everyone’s Thanksgiving was a good reprieve from everything else last month and the year ends on a high note.

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.

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November Content

Boston – Everything I Remember and More: It was great to get back to Boston after so many years. Check out my thoughts and many pictures.

Boston – Everything I Remember and More

Atlanta Beltline Northeast Trail New Segment Ride Along: Bit by bit, the Atlanta Beltline is coming together. Ride along one of the newest sections.

YouTube – Atlanta Beltline Northeast Trail New Segment Ride Along

Developments that Excited Me

Transformative Westside Project. The thing that strikes me the most about the land surrounding the Westside Beltline corridor is the pure vastness and abundance of opportunity. This project could be a catalyst toward allowing more people to call a dense, mobility-rich area of the City home.

Five Points Station moves forward: Not sure if I’d really file this under “exciting” but it’ll be better than what’s there now upon completion.

Georgia State Continued Downtown Investment: It’s great to see Georgia State continue to help reshape Downtown. As I’ve mentioned several times through the years, a City is only as good as it’s Downtown, and Atlanta’s is finally making strides.

Star Metals: Who said all new buildings look the same?!

Get Involved, Atlanta!

Date	Event	Notes
12/2	City Council	1:00 PM
11/3	City Council Runoff	VOTE
12/9	Zoning Committee	9:30 AM
12/10	Let’s Talk Transit	6:30 PM
12/11	Transportation Committee	10:00 AM
Various Dates	Stitch Walking Tours	Various Times
Various Dates	South Downtown Tours	Various Times

Atlanta Calendar of Events

Get Involved, Raleigh

Date	Event	Notes
12/2	City Council swearing in	5:00 PM
12/5	Raleigh Forward / WakeUpWake County Reception	5:30 PM
12/7	City Council	1:00 PM & 7:00 PM
12/10	Planning Commission	9:00 AM

Raleigh Calendar of Events

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
• More suburban spotlights
• Urban Connector Top 10 of 2024

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.

Subscribe to my YouTube Channel

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Ride along the newest section of Atlanta Beltline. Head to YouTube to watch!

Phil Veasley is a Professional Engineer 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.

Subscribe to my YouTube Channel

Subscribe to receive email notifications for new articles.

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FURTHER READING

I got the chance a couple of weeks back to finally visit Boston again. Some of my earliest childhood memories involving cities were going to Boston with my family.

From the Harborfront, Boston Public Garden, Fenway, and the jumbled up street grid, things felt so familiar.

But there was so much that felt brand new and unrecognizable, like the multitude of new towers, gleaming new Seaport District, great bike infrastructure (and high usage even in the freezing cold), continued evolution of the land surrounding the Big Dig, and the new appreciation for the beautiful urban neighborhoods.

After spending the past few years doing most of my professional work in Atlanta, it was also super encouraging to see how a comprehensive transit system with amazing frequencies is committed to continually reinventing itself.

Check out some of my favorite shots captured. Can’t wait to get back!

Further Reading

InPhil Designs: InPhil Designs

All Articles: The Urban Connector

All things Atlanta: Atlanta Articles

Phil Veasley is a Professional Engineer 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, and Twitter accounts.

Opinions and insights are my own and are not representative of my employer or any organization.

November is here. While it may get dark insanely too early, at least the weather is still nice.

Shoutout to everyone who has turned out to vote in record numbers already. If you haven’t, your last chance is on election day this coming Tuesday. Please, make your voice heard and vote. I’m staying away from individual endorsements but take a look at your local elections and consider candidates who will dedicate their campaigns to building housing, dense, sustainable and walkable neighborhoods to enhance affordability, as well as support safe street initiatives. Federally, please think about things beyond yourself – consider your children’s’, immigrant, BIPOC, women’s, LGBTQIA+, teachers, doctors, and everyone’s’ futures.

I’m also happy to announce that I am now CNU Accredited from the Congress for the New Urbanism.

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, and Instagram.

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October Content

Sights from a Sunday Stroll

Photo tour and insights from a LONG walk through Atlanta’s urban core.

Sights from a long Sunday Stroll

Savannah Photo and Drone Tour

Photo and Drone tours of beautiful Downtown Savannah. At some point, I’ll have a video / article with my thoughts on the Historic City.

Savannah Photo and Drone Tour

Suburban Spotlight: Wendell

The booming small town with big charm and former home for a few years is showing signs of success just East of Raleigh.

Suburban Spotlight – Wendell

Developments that Excited Me

Glenwood Park infill: This beautiful building is on it’s on it’s way to Glenwood Park and it’ll have no new parking – trust me, there’s more than enough around it though. Also, comparing the size and utility of this building compared to the scale of the drive-thru single use Chick-Fil-A next door is insane.

Beltline gap to be filled: The seemingly random on street detour section of the Westside Trail will be filled in soon.

West End Mall redevelopment progress: This might actually be happening! Name and details have been released. While I do think we could handle a bit more density in this area, it’s better than what’s there now. Even better, are the plans and programs that are planned to be put in place to maintain affordability and help community businesses. Now if we could just get something other than surface lots at the MARTA station next door and make it easier to cross I-20 to and from the AUC. I explored that a bit a few years ago and plan to refine the whole vision soon.

The Stich rolls on: Another one that just might actually happen.

Affordable housing density bonus: There is single solution to our housing crisis but this provides yet another tool in the toolbox.

The Yellow Store rehab: The historic Westside Yellow Store is set to be reborn as a mixed-use corner.

AMC redevelopment: I could go on about Wellstar’s decision to abandon their two in-town facilities while pouring millions into their suburban campuses, but at least they’ve quickly put together a solid vision for the former Atlanta Medical Center.

Get Involved, Atlanta!

Date	Event	Notes
11/4	City Council	1:00 PM
11/5	VOTE	VOTE
11/13	Zoning Committee	9:30 AM
11/13	Transportation Committee	10:00 AM
11/17	Streets Alive (RDA ROUTE)	1-5:00 PM
10/18	City Council	1:00 PM
11/25	Zoning Committee	10:00 AM
11/25	Transportation Committee	10:00 AM
12/2	City Council	1:00 PM
Various Dates	Stitch Walking Tours	Various Times
Various Dates	South Downtown Tours	Various Times

Atlanta Calendar of Events

Get Involved, Raleigh

Date	Event	Notes
11/5	Election Day	VOTE
11/6	City Council	1:00 PM & 7:00 PM
11/12	Planning Commission	9:00 AM
11/12	City Council	7:00 PM
11/18	BPAC	6:00 PM
11/19	City Council Work Session	11:30 AM
11/26	Planning Commission	9:00 AM
12/3	City Council	1:00 PM & 7:00 PM

Raleigh Calendar of Events

What I’m working on this month (and probably later)

• Updates to earlier drawings to the Reconnecting Communities sketches
• The Enigma of North Hills video
• More suburban spotlights

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, and Twitter accounts.

Opinions and insights are my own and are not representative of my employer or any organization.

Subscribe to my YouTube Channel

Subscribe to receive email notifications for new articles.

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Continuing the suburban exploration series with Wendell, NC. Before we dive in, make sure to head back and check out my previous spotlights.

Wendell is an emerging suburb located approximately 15 miles East of Raleigh. It has seen a period of rapid growth due to it’s proximity to Downtown Raleigh and relative affordability when compared to other areas in Wake County. While just home to 4,000 in 2000, the Town is now home to around 15,000 and growing daily.

While most of the growth has been what one would consider to be sprawl, Wendell has a few good qualities that set it apart from typical suburbs.

Development Pipeline:

Downtown Wendell: Home to many local shops and restaurants, Historic Downtown Wendell is off the beaten path with it’s Main Street not featuring through traffic. There are finally signs of infill residential taking place downtown which is the single best thing for the Town.

Note: I do not own, control, or have any say over any parcels. This is purely a conceptual idea to illustrate the potential of Downtown as a vibrant, sustainable, mixed-use center.

Wendell Falls: Wendell Falls is a massive 4000 residence community on the Eastern edge of town featuring a mix of single family, townhomes, apartments, retail, and services. While it is greenfield in nature, the grid structure, density, and mixed-use concepts have some new-urbanist components. While far from perfect, it was a great place to call home for three years.

It’s unfortunate that plans for the Collective mixed-use district seem to have been watered down but zoning still allows for up to 2 million square feet of non-commercial use. Marketing material originally illustrated a vibrant mixed use district with full scale grocery and a town-center type village. Now apartments without ground floor retail dominate the site with a far smaller retail portion. Just a harsh reality of building costs now.

Much of the land between the two main areas of Wendell Falls is for sale. Maybe that can one day make up for that loss.

Note: I do not own, control, or have any say over any parcels. This is purely a conceptual idea to illustrate the potential of these parcels as a vibrant, sustainable, mixed-use center.

Focused growth nodes: The Wendell 2030 Blueprint plan featured themes around focusing growth in nodes around connected corridors in the Town.

Greenspace: The town has an abundance of greenspace and preserves. The recent passage of a Parks and Recs bond as well as continued investment from Wake County have Wendell punching way above it’s weight in the parks department.

Golfcarts: The town has a robust golf cart culture with 100s of registered golf carts used for transportation. Anything to get cars off the road is a win! Yes, there’s even golf cart parades.

FURTHER READING

InPhil Designs: InPhil Designs

Wendell Articles (Please note, a lot of these contained outdated references)

All things Raleigh: https://philveasley.com/raleigh/

Phil Veasley is a Professional Engineer 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, and Twitter accounts.

Opinions and insights are my own and are not representative of my employer or any organization.

Subscribe to my YouTube Channel

Subscribe to receive email notifications for new articles.

✓ Subscribed

Drone tour of Historic Downtown Savannah, GA. Head to YouTube to watch!

Sights from a recent trip to Savannah.

Phil Veasley is a Professional Engineer 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, and Twitter accounts.

Opinions and insights are my own and are not representative of my employer or any organization.

Happy October! I hope everyone fared well and is recovering from Hurricane Hellene

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, and Instagram.

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September Content

Atlanta 4K Summer Drone Tour

The latest installment of my Atlanta drone tours.

YouTube – Atlanta 4K Drone Tour: Summer 2024

Suburban Spotlight – Trilith

Tour and insights from Trilith. A new-urbanist greenfield development outside of Atlanta.

Suburban Spotlight – Trilith

Atlanta Streets Alive – September Ride Along

Atlanta Streets Alive – September Sights and Sounds

Developments that Excited Me

Atlanta 2028 Super Bowl?! Reportedly the Big Game is coming back to Atlanta.

Third time is a charm for West End Mall revamp? The aging mall in one of the most transit-rich, accessible, and student rich parts of Atlanta may finally be on it’s way to redevelopment.

MASSIVE redevelopment of the Georgia Pacific Building! A partial office-to-residential conversion plus ground floor retail will revamp one of the most crucial blocks Downtown.

Centennial Yards, taking off! If you haven’t walked out of Mercedes Benz Stadium or State Farm Arena, things are changing quickly. The Mitchell recently topped out, the first hotel is going up quickly and the massive entertainment district is about to go vertical. A massive infusion of cash is on the way too.

30 stories at Undergound. In what will be the first skyline changing tower for this part of Downtown in decades, plans were unveiled for a mixed income tower at Underground Atlanta.

Teacher’s Village finally on the way? The long anticipated tower may finally break ground in 2025.

Red Hat Amphitheatre staying Downtown. After much fuss was made about the closure of a road that carries less than 5,000 vehicles per day in the middle of a full grid, the Raleigh City Council unanimously approved a plan for a revamped Red Hat Amphitheatre.

Atlanta Beltline updates. So much is happening with the Beltline right now! Getting close to having the “U”.

Beltline Transit Study Update. We’ll see, but just the thought of being able to get around the Beltline via rail is exciting. Despite some scary moments this year, it seems like (at the very least) the Streetcar East extension will still happen soon. Let’s hope so!

Get Involved, Atlanta!

Date	Event	Notes
10/7	City Council	1:00 PM
10/7	Deadline to register to vote	DEADLINE
10/14	Zoning Committee	11:00 AM
10/15	Early voting begins	VOTE
10/16	Transportation Committee	10:00 AM
10/20	Streets Alive (RDA ROUTE)	1-5:00 PM
10/21	City Council	1:00 PM
10/25	Critical Mass Ride	6:30 PM – Meet at Woodruff Park
10/28	Zoning Committee	11:00 AM
10/30	Transportation Committee	10:00 AM
11/4	City Council	1:00 PM
11/5	Election Day	VOTE!
Various Dates	Stitch Walking Tours	Various Times

Atlanta Calendar of Events

Get Involved, Raleigh

Date	Event	Notes
10/4	First Friday	Downtown
10/8	Planning Commission	9:00 AM
10/8	City Council	4:00 PM & 7:00 PM
10/11	Deadline to register to vote	Can register in-person during g early voting too
10/15	City Council	11:30 AM & 1:00 PM
10/17	Early voting begins	VOTE
10/21	BPAC	6:00 PM
10/22	Planning Commission	9:00 AM
10/25	Raleigh Critical Mass Ride	7:00 PM
11/1	First Friday	Downtown
11/5	Election Day	VOTE

Raleigh Calendar of Events

What I’m working on this month (and probably later)

• Updates to earlier drawings to the Reconnecting Communities sketches
• The Enigma of North Hills video
• More suburban spotlights

I’m sure this newsletter will evolve as time goes on. Comments or suggestions? Let me know!

Phil Veasley is a Professional Engineer 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, and Twitter accounts.

Opinions and insights are my own and are not representative of any organization.

Subscribe to my YouTube Channel

Subscribe to receive email notifications for new articles.

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This month’s edition of Atlanta Streets Alive connected Grant Park to West End. I really enjoyed the route and it seems that many others did too. Head over to YouTube to watch a full ride along of the route!

Head over to YouTube to watch.

Further Reading: Atlanta

Phil Veasley is a Professional Engineer 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, and Twitter accounts.

Opinions and insights are my own and are not representative of my employer or any organization.

Subscribe to my YouTube Channel

Subscribe to receive email notifications for new articles.

✓ Subscribed

Continuing the suburban exploration series with Trilith. Before we dive in, make sure to head back and check out my spotlight on Woodstock.

Trilith is a made from scratch new-urbanist greenfield development and movie studio complex roughly 25 miles Southwest of Downtown Atlanta.

It’s not your typical greenfield sprawl development though. Trilith is a dense, walkable, town center type environment filled with pocket parks, innovative architecture, shops, restaurants and more. It goes to show that not all greenfield development fits the sprawl definition.

The new-urbanist development type proves to be extremely popular – even when it’s in the middle of nowhere. Housing prices here are off the charts. As proven time and time again, people will pay a premium to live in a walkable environment. We need to build more of them – especially in the city.

Check out the gallery below from a recent walkthrough.

To find out more about Trilith head to their website.

Stay tuned next time as we explore Wendell, NC.

FURTHER READING

InPhil Designs: InPhil Designs

All ideas: The Urban Connector

All things Atlanta: https://philveasley.com/atlanta/

Phil Veasley is a Professional Engineer 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, and Twitter accounts.

Opinions and insights are my own and are not representative of my employer or any organization.