Living Beyond Expectations on Sweet Auburn

Sometimes when I have to be out of town for work I end up missing something very cool that is happening in Atlanta, and that happened to me last week.  On June 19 the Atlanta Regional Commission hosted a daylong training on tactical urbanism followed by a day of workshops on June 20.  Mike Lydon and his team from the Street Plans Collaborative were there, along with Jason Roberts from The Better Block.  The City of Memphis has really embraced tactical urbanism as a way to make Memphis a better place to live, and Thomas Pacello of the City of Memphis Mayor's Innovation Team was there too.  And this coincided with the Atlanta chapter of the Congress for the New Urbanism's third Thursday event, so there was a chance to talk to all of them over drinks at Noni's in the Old Fourth Ward.  And of course, while all of this was going on I was out of town.

The question the ARC was trying to address was a serious one -- what kind of neighborhoods will people need as they age?  This is especially an issue in a city like Atlanta, that is so dependent on cars and driving.  What do you do when you can't or don't want to drive anymore?

Although I missed the training and the workshops, I was back for the "better block" intervention on Auburn Avenue on June 21-22.  Rain intervened on Saturday afternoon and we went late in the day; by the time we got there there were not so many people around but it was still fun to see.  We came back the next day and again got there as things were winding down.

There were some pop-up shops there including Civil Bikes; I had talked to Nedra before, at the most recent Streets Alive event, so I was excited to see that they had a physical location.  She explained that the shop actually would be there all summer.  It turned out that the pop-up shops didn't have anything to do with the ARC event; they were part of a separate initiative related to the Atlanta Streetcar, which sort of explained why no one other than Nedra seemed to know about the other pop-up shops in the neighborhood, and why when we finally figured out where they were, they were not even necessarily open.

But no more complaining.  There was some cool stuff to see.  There were Walk [Your City] signs.

There was a pop-up plaza with a stage and performances.

The We Love Atlanta truck, the best mobile art gallery ever, was there earlier, but gone by the time we got there.

Living Walls had had tours earlier in the day of the wonderful murals in the neighborhood.  This one, from the artist JR, was installed last summer.

People for Bikes sponsored the bike lane, with a temporary barrier that wouldn't have stopped an errant car but did make the lane safer by providing a visual barrier.

Neighborland was there too, with red stickers instead of green.  There were all kinds of suggestions on how to make Auburn Avenue a great place to live for people of all ages -- everything from bike lanes to better transit to a supermarket to more things for kids to do to drug treatment.

There was a nice piece on line about the project.  Here's the subheader:  

Regional planners showcased a neighborhood with easy access to transportation, health services and entertainment. But it only lasted two days.

Tactical urbanism aims for "short term action, long term change."  Kudos to the ARC for catalyzing the short term action.  But what we need is the long term change.  I'm glad we're trying, but it's a hard lift in this city, with its legions of exhausted, angry drivers.  What matters is what happens now.