What does it mean to love our Midtown neighborhood?
Like the labor of a gardener preparing soil, or their careful planning of the arrange of plants, so too must we devote ourselves to cultivating our patch of the Earth so that our environment yields the most brilliant blooms. Loving Midtown is tending a garden – creating the best environment for a lush, diverse, and ever-growing neighborhood.
What unique qualities do you offer that will continue the positive growth and work of MNA?
My technical base comes from a background in civil engineering and my implementation knowledge comes from an unending curiosity in local government’s decisions. Taken together, my combination of physical and political know-how will allow us to augment the great work already happening at MNA.
How are you a good Midtown neighbor today?
I and my fiancé moved to Midtown about 18 months ago and I immediately began attending every MNA committee and board meeting that I could, plus many NPU-E meetings for good measure. I pay careful attention to the goings-on of the community and have become a co-chair of the MNA License and Permits committee with Gregory Higgins.
Where would you like to see progress in our community?
I am most excited by the work to be done in four areas: Activations, Urban Beautification, Transportation, and Charity.
Activations – Midtown already draws visitors, workers, and neighbors from around the world but there is ample opportunity to more fully turn our high rises, mid rises, mixed use, and historic garden neighborhood from a collection of steel, concrete, and lumber to lively environments for friends old and new to connect and recreate. I will support more outdoor dining, more nightlife opportunities with effective regulation to offer patrons and residents higher standards of safety and serenity, and more retail in appropriate corridors.
Urban Beautification – The level of development energy all across Midtown is a valuable resource, and that energy needs to be spent wisely. We have to stop spending excess energy on car parking. I will reduce the constant stream of new parking spaces by disincentivizing their construction, demand that new parking structures be designed to look like anything but parking structures, and seek more collaboration with the Midtown Alliance on their great programs bringing green spaces and other natural touches to the neighborhood.
Transportation – My vision for Atlanta is a city where driving a single occupancy car is the last choice people make. All new infrastructure should reflect this, and we need to upgrade existing infrastructure to prioritize other means of transportation. “Complete Streets” projects which turn vehicle lanes into linear parks and bicycle/scooter lanes are a perfect start and we need to do more. We need to make it easier to use bicycles and scooters to get to the places in Midtown we want to be (Piedmont Park, Colony Square, Coda, Georgia Tech, Woodruff Arts Center, the Botanical Gardens, the Beltline, etc.) and we need to make it so easy and fun to get on MARTA that you just can’t help but leave the car at home. And for the occasional trip, or even commute, that requires a car, we need to fix the problem of idling cars blocking travel lanes. Amazon, UPS, Fed Ex, the mail carriers, Grubhub, Uber Eats, and many others need places to temporarily stop, and we should find strategic areas for them to do so. Easily identifiable and conveniently placed loading zones will allow couriers to do their jobs without ruining the flow of traffic around them.
Charity – We can’t truly say we love our neighbors without acknowledging the plight of our transient neighbors. With a bit of organization and a lot of good will, I’m confident we can take those living haphazardly across our sidewalks and help them find something better. For every improvement we can imagine for Midtown, we must imagine double for those whose dreams have been tossed aside.