My Tombstone

“Shall provide a new public access street (or streets) in accordance with the Beltline Street Framework Plan, unless granted a variation in accordance with this chapter”.

City of Atlanta Zoning Ordinance: 16.36.10.e

There is a sentence that in some form or other was pervasive throughout subdivision and/or zoning ordinances across the U.S. beginning in the 1950’s. It simply stated, “Local streets shall be so laid out that their use by through traffic will be discouraged.” This sentence probably had a greater impact on the form of our suburbs than all other regulations combined because it took the most basic element of the city, the street, and radically changed it. Instead of a connected network of streets, it required that we limit the amount of connectivity across our communities. It got us this:

Which in turn got us this:

Typical Atlanta Suburb

So, what does this have to do with my tombstone?

I lived in Atlanta for about 30 years from 1984 until I relocated to London at the end of 2013, and during that time I was both practicing and teaching at Georgia Tech in the College of Architecture. I worked with a lot of different people and made a lot of friends. But in the early 2000’s there was a group of us that started working on something that turned out to be special. It was something like the simple sentence above, but we hoped it would drive very different outcomes. The core group was mostly made up of recent graduates and grad students from the College of Design that started brainstorming about the impact of the Beltline on Atlanta. It was one of those times that, while you are in it, you don’t realize the uniqueness of the situation or the impact of what you are doing. It was only on a visit back to Atlanta, almost twenty years later, that it hit me; the incredible time we were all in, doing things that would have lasting impact.

For us, getting a simple, connected, walkable street network throughout the industrial redevelopment areas along the Beltline was a matter of the utmost importance. We really believed it would have a significant impact on the city, and we were certain that if it wasn’t executed properly, it could have significant detrimental impact on the Beltline as a project, and on the city as a whole. We were all-in.

The group was primarily made up of younger professionals or soon-to-graduate students who were aligned professionally and were also friends. The group included Jeff Williams, Ryan Gravel, Jennifer Ball, Katherine Moore, Cassie Branum, Geoff Boyd, Kevin Bacon, and the late Heather Alhadeff. It started with a few studios at Georgia Tech that were organized around the idea of a master street plan for the 6500+/- acres of area to be redeveloped along the Beltline, and it was fueled by many late night discussions about things like streets and our ability to change the world. At Tech, we were supported by three key professors, John Peponis, as well as Richard Dagenhart and Doug Allen, both of whom have since passed away. In retrospect, this was an amazing group of people who all went on to do amazing things, but at the time it was just a bunch of local urban designers, supported by the folks that taught us what we know, hoping to have an impact.

We spent years working out a street plan for the city, through multiple years of studios, thousands of student-drawn plans, revising and testing our plans, presentations to government agencies and local neighborhoods, and pressing our case to anyone else that would listen. In the end we were able to create a pretty good plan for the city, but without getting something adopted, it would have been a lot of work and effort resulting in minimal, if any, impactful outcome. But while we were doing all this, three of our group were also working for the City; Heather, Ryan, and Jeff. The work we had prepared now actually had a chance of being incorporated into the Beltline Overlay, a special zoning district that was set up to facilitate beneficial development adjacent to the Beltline.

Fast forward to the summer of 2023, twenty years after we had begun our somewhat quixotic efforts. I had only been back through Atlanta a few times since leaving in 2013, but now I was back to walk the Beltline with some clients who had never seen it. I cajoled Jeff and Cassie into taking us on a walking tour from Memorial Drive back up through to Piedmont Park. The transformation was overwhelming. Ryan’s vision for the Beltline had come to pass. But the impact was outsized for me because I hadn’t lived through it, seeing it incrementally unfold. I left when virtually none of it existed, and I returned when it was fully formed.

Back to my tombstone. In 2006, when the overlay district was adopted, I searched for reference to the Street Framework Plan, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. Finally, I found one line that simply said you had to provide streets in accordance with the plan. At the time I was certain that all the work we had put into the plan was for nothing, and I believed it would have no impact on the development patterns along the Beltline. But the power of simple regulations can sometimes be astounding.

On my walk with Jeff and Cassie, I mentioned that I wished the work we had done for the street plan had been more successful, but I was told that, in fact, it was being used everywhere along the Beltline, and that it had real impact on the development patters of affected areas. It had benefited the city.

I think it probably has had a beneficial impact. And when I die, it’s what I want on my tombstone, because of all the places I have worked and all the projects in which I have been involved, it may be that one simple sentence had more impact than all the other efforts combined. And, beyond that, it represents a time when a group of us got together and with determination, focus, and joy did something that mattered.

Master Street Plan Draft - Chosewood Park Neighborhood, Atlanta

I miss those days, the friends and mentors we’ve lost, and the incredible enthusiasm we all had. It was a rare time in my life. It was fun, it was meaningful, and, I think, we did some good. Sometimes it’s important to look back and remember these things.