What does it mean to love our Midtown neighborhood?
Our Midtown neighborhood is one of the most unique places in the world. It allows us to experience the best of Atlanta while living without a car. Loving Midtown is recognizing how great Midtown can be and committing to show this vision to everyone else. Often this means living this vision through demonstration.
What unique qualities do you offer that will continue the positive growth and work of MNA?
I’m part of a multiethnic, single car family with two young children, one in Spark and one in pre-school. We live in Midtown’s Garden District and work in Midtown’s Improvement District. I’ve studied, lived and worked all over our city for 20+ years. We walk/run/bike/MARTA/drive our neighborhood everyday. Because we use so many modes of transportation within our
neighborhood we are aware of nuances of safety, disrepair, and demand. I have spent multiple years helping to create livable neighborhoods with the USDOT, GDOT, MARTA, ARC (Atlanta Regional Commission), City of Atlanta, ATL DOT, and many more cities, communities, states and countries around the world. My team and I specialized in showing how changes in zoning and transportation will improve safety, accessibility and overall quality of life.
How are you a good Midtown neighbor today?
I helped create Beltline Rail Now where we successfully campaigned to get a revision in the city of Atlanta transportation plan (More MARTA) to add $200 million towards the completion
of the Atlanta BeltLine.
Biking to school is essential for creating strong, healthy, independent children. Through MNA’s infrastructure committee, I have been advocating for safe bike infrastructure. Most recently I have been helping the new Virginia-Highland Elementary School develop its transportation plan including safe bike bus routes for our youngest children.
Where would you like to see progress in our community?
We are the central neighborhood in one of the largest cities in the country. How we use our limited space impacts a lot more people than just the residents of our neighborhood. I want to see Midtown continue being the example of a livable neighborhood by providing equitable access to the necessities of life, including housing, mobility, food, services, education, and meaningful work. This means championing complete streets, zoning reform, improved transit, more affordable housing, keeping arts and artists in Atlanta, and keeping neighborhood commercial districts vital, diverse, and walkable. This includes providing all residents the right to participate in decisions which affect them.