Jane's Walk in Downtown Atlanta

I can't even remember how I found out about it; it might have been an email from the local Congress for the New Urbanism chapter, or maybe I saw it on Facebook.  CNU Atlanta, along with PEDS, was hosting a Jane's Walk on May 7.  I had never heard of Jane's Walk, but I had heard of Jane Jacobs, the influential author and advocate for livable cities.  (Just before I sat down to write this, I looked for my copy of The Death and Life of Great American Cities, but I couldn't find it; it is probably at the bottom of one of the large piles of books next to my bed.)  Jane Jacobs identified the things about cities and neighborhoods that makes them good places to be -- things like diversity of use, older buildings, small blocks, and population density.  The group behind Jane's Walks (more about them in a minute) have a nice overview of her life and her work on their website, or you can look at the graphic version from artist James Gulliver Hancock -- it's pretty much all there.

Jane Jacobs lived in New York City and later in Toronto.  After her death in 2006, friends and colleagues in Toronto started Jane's Walks to honor her ideas and her legacy.  What is a Jane's Walk?  Here's what is on the Jane's Walk website:

Jane’s Walks are free, locally organized walking tours, in which people get together to explore, talk about and celebrate their neighbourhoods. Where more traditional tours are a bit like walking lectures, a Jane’s Walk is more of a walking conversation. Leaders share their knowledge, but also encourage discussion and participation among the walkers.

Iain and I rode MARTA to Woodruff Park, where we met up with the group.  The walk's leader, Candler Vinson, was late (he was stuck on MARTA, someone announced) so there was some waiting around before we got started.  One woman had brought her copy of The Death and Life of Great American Cities.  It was worn with many Post-It notes marking pages.  Someone handed out a sheet with the Jane Jacobs graphic printed on it,  While we waited we checked out the concrete ping-pong table in the park.

Once Candler Vinson got there, we headed east on Auburn Avenue, and our first stop was across the street from the Atlanta Daily World Building.  One of our several enthusiastic narrators told the story of how the building -- damaged in the 2008 tornado -- was proposed for demolition by a developer.  That didn't happen and another developer purchased the building and renovated it for commercial use on the first floor and apartments above.  Somehow I did not take picture of it (I think it was in the shade) but there are photos at the link above.  There's now a coffee shop and a juice place on the first floor.  What I did take a picture of at this stop was the person with the microphone who I think is Darin Givens while Terry Kearns took a picture of the crowd.

We continued on to Piedmont where we stopped and talked about what we'd seen.  The thing that had struck me the most was how much of the area was taken up with parking decks.  There were more places to park, I think, than things to do once you got there.  Sally Flocks from PEDS talked about how all the four lane one way streets created more road capacity than almost any city needed.  At one point along our route the sidewalk was nearly completely blocked by a large sign for motorists telling them a lane was closed ahead.  And there was discussion about how Georgia State had been really good for downtown, by putting lots of students there (not so much for all the parking decks, though.)

On Ellis Street we stopped across the street from the newly renovated Atlanta Legal Aid building, now named for our neighbor Steve Gottlieb.  It's a beautiful building, but it's nearly completely surrounded by parking.

After that we crossed Peachtree and continued on Carnegie Way.  I think that is where I got this photo of the iconic Portman-style skybridges that sucked people off the street in a very non-Jane Jacobs kind of way.  On the Jane's Walk website, that's Jane Jacobs' Big Idea number 1, "eyes on the street."  The difference between a street that feels safe and a street that doesn't feel safe is people -- people going to and from work or school, out for a bite to eat, or out to shop, or to visit friends, and anything that diverts people from the street makes the street feel less safe, and if it feels less safe, people are even more likely to avoid it.

Our next stop was Walton Spring Park.  On Google Maps, the park is green, and there is some green there, with trees creating a pleasant shaded area on the sidewalks surrounding the park.  

The park itself, not so much.  It is a bare, unshaded granite plaza with benches that appeared to be used only by homeless people.

Looking at these pictures and remembering what it was like to be there that afternoon, one does have to wonder who thought this was a good idea.  Central Atlanta Progress and the City of Atlanta and some other people did this on purpose in 2008, to honor Andrew Young.  It seems like it might have been even more of an honor if they had designed a park that people actually wanted to be in.  

From there we headed southwest on Ted Turner Drive and then back southeast, but I am not sure what street this was on but I stopped to take a picture of it.

Our next stop was the Fairlie-Poplar District, which I have heard of for years but don't think I had ever visited.  It was very pleasant, with narrow shady streets, small buildings from the 19th and early 20th century, and several appealing-looking restaurants and bars at street level, with what appeared to be residential floors above.  Big Idea number 3 is "the generators of diversity" that help make the city "diverse, safe, social, convenient, and economically vibrant" -- mixed uses, aged buildings, small blocks, and population density.

From there we headed back southwest on Forsyth Street.  I think this is where I took this picture, where clearly the city is trying to do something about the overly wide streets.

We continued on Forsyth and went by the Atlanta Journal Constitution building at the corner of Forsyth and Marietta.  I am sorry that the picture is better of the fence than it is of the building.  It is a weirdly compelling sight, with trees growing from various surfaces; this photograph does not do it justice.  The building is definitely ruin porn material; I just didn't take a good picture of it.

We stopped at the Federal office complex, where there was a pleasant shady green space.  Thousands of Federal workers have their offices there, but apparently they park their cars in their parking deck, go to work, have lunch at the cafeteria in the building, work some more and then go home, and the nearby commercial areas don't benefit particularly by their presence.

We headed back southeast on Martin Luther King Jr Drive, and stopped at Broad Street, which the Goat Farm team has been trying to catalyze as a downtown arts district.  I would have liked to walk around and explore but we kept moving; I guess I will have to come back.

From there we headed past the Fulton County Government Center and then back to the northeast.  We ended up at Underground Atlanta, where one of our speakers made the point about the hazards of having the place in the hands of a single owner, where whatever you do it's a really big investment, and if it fails (as has happened several times at Underground) it fails big, instead of one-building-at-a-time investment and experimentation.  That's Big Idea number 7, "make many little plans" and Big Idea number 8, "gradual money."  

The diversity of a good neighborhood can only be achieved when we allow many different people to pursue their own little plans, individually and collectively.

Both diverse little plans and new kinds of work require diverse little sources of money available on an ongoing basis.  Unfortunately, both public and private sources often only provide money floods and droughts instead.

Iain and I agreed that it was an interesting way to spend a Sunday afternoon.  So many neighborhoods with great old buildings that could be special, if we renovated them instead of knocking them down to build parking decks.  I found the thing I always find when I travel by foot or by bike through parts of town I knew only by car, that things are much closer together than I thought.  From the point of view of distance, it was definitely walkable, even if the walking wasn't necessarily pleasant with obstructions on sidewalks and so little interesting to look at in some places.  And finally, the overwhelming sense that for downtown to be radically better, we have to have more people there without their cars.

On the way home we (well, make that "I" - this was more me than Iain) got impatient and frustrated with MARTA -- a bus was supposed to be coming, but it didn't, and then we were going to take the train but none were showing up on the electronic board, and then the next bus didn't show up on One Bus Away and wasn't moving on MARTA's real time map.  So we booked an Uber ride home.  As soon as we did that, of course our bus appeared.