The Neighborhoods We Want (Business Edition, Part 2)

I haven't posted in a long time - there are several half-written posts in my head, but none of them ever got to keyboard (there's been a lot going on).  But I have to get this post written because there's another round of discussion on Nextdoor about local businesses closing.  The spice store in Virginia Highland closed - I loved the spice store, but it's gone.  On Nextdoor, it's pretty much the same discussion as last time, about rents and foot traffic and competition from cooler commercial areas like Ponce City Market or Krog Street Market and paid parking and what kinds of retail and restaurants used to be in the neighborhood as opposed to what's there now.

It's not that it's a great time for retail generally.  A couple days ago NBC News reported that over a thousand stores closed in a recent week, and more than 100,000 retail workers have lost their jobs since October 2016.  Retail space is overbuilt, and that, along with online buying and other changes in taste and habit (malls stopped being cool decades ago) have decimated shopping malls.

But our neighborhood commercial areas aren't enclosed malls or strip malls - they are appealing, and walkable, and in well-established neighborhoods with substantial buying power.  In spite of that, though, businesses struggle and the latest round of closings in Virginia Highland has reignited the discussion about what's going on.  In our small commercial area in Morningside, it seems that vacancies linger longer than they do in Virginia Highland, where hope springs eternal and retailers keep trying.  There's a "Coming Soon" sign up where Half-Moon Outfitters was and another empty location also will reopen sometime before too long as something else.  But if rents are so high that the businesses the neighborhood actually can and will support can't survive, and there aren't enough destination shops to fill the spaces, at some point, places stay vacant, because once rents go up, they don't go down.

There was an article in the New York Times last week about what happened to a small retail area on Bleecker Street in West Village in New York City.  There used to be neighborhood businesses like bodegas and laundromats and hardware stores, but then the high-end stores came in, and the neighborhood was briefly full of high-priced designer shops.  Then the designer stores failed (they didn't get much business), and now the rents are too high for anything else and the storefronts are vacant.

"If many of the high-end stores along Bleecker didn’t prosper as businesses, 'they succeeded in transforming the area into a luxury retail neighborhood that feeds on itself,' said Jeremiah Moss, who has tracked the city’s ever-changing streetscape on his blog, Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York, since 2007.

"Bleecker Street, Mr. Moss said, is a prime example of high-rent blight, a symptom of late-stage gentrification. 'These stores open as billboards for the brand,' he said. 'Then they leave because the rents become untenable. Landlords hold out. And you’re left with storefronts that will sit vacant for a year, two years, three years.'"

 Here are the last several paragraphs of the article:

"Elad Yifrach, the founder and creative director of L’Objet, an upscale décor brand that opened its first New York store last fall in one of the former Coach outposts, believes the area still has retail magic, despite the recent hard times.

“'Bleecker is quintessential West Village,' he said. 'The most beautiful townhouses are around there. The street needs to go back to bringing a cool factor, things that will inspire the audience.'

"For many longtime Village residents, what the street is missing is not a cool factor but the essential mix of businesses that makes a neighborhood function. On a recent afternoon, Marjorie Reitman, who has lived in the Village for 43 years and who was out on Bleecker Street walking her neighbor’s dog, Walter, reflected on the street’s mercantile past.

“'I remember when I first moved down here,' she said. 'There was a hardware store owned by an elderly couple, a grocery store, a newspaper store.'

"She was standing in front of ATM Anthony Thomas Melillo, a clothing boutique that opened in February to sell $115 'destroyed wash' T-shirts and other garments. The store had no customers, and the front door was open, allowing the air-conditioning to pump out into the street, something Ms. Reitman lectured the young sales associates about.
'That’s the attitude: "I have money, I can pay the fine, I don’t care,"' Ms. Reitman said.

"The original Marc Jacobs store on Bleecker that started the boom was next door with its windows blacked out. Ms. Reitman had an idea for that space and the other empty stores that dot Bleecker Street like missing teeth in a very expensive mouth.

"'They should all be pot shops,' she said. 'Seriously. I’m not kidding. I can’t imagine what else could go in and pay the rent.'"

If it is not possible to make enough to pay the rent, no one will stay in business, and once rents go up, they don't, apparently, go down.  So Caramba is replaced by Burger Tap which is replaced by the waffle sandwich place (okay, so maybe there is a reason other than high rents why some of these places didn't make it) which is replaced by Timone's which is replaced by Timone's which is replaced by Whiskey Bird. I certainly wish the Whiskey Bird folks well, but it they don't make it, it's back to brown paper covering the windows and a "For Lease" sign.

I would like to be optimistic but I'm not.  I don't know if there is any turning the clock back, once you lose the places that make your neighborhood function for the people who live there.  If the business plan requires that lots of people come from outside the neighborhood, then there's the reality of competition from cooler places and traffic and parking -- it might work for Murphy's, but it's hard to see it working for the entire commercial district.  Our neighborhood commercial areas may not be quite at the "high-rent blight" stage, but if it happens, at least now we know what to call it.

 And for all those folks on Nextdoor, we have the answer -- the rents are too high.

The Neighborhoods We Want (Business Edition)

It was in early September that we got the email announcement that Toscano & Sons, the Italian grocery store in Virginia Highland, was closing.  This was a shock.  That was where we bought flour for pizza making in 50 pound bags and cans of Italian tomatoes for pizza sauce.  They had great sandwiches and it was pleasant to sit on the sidewalk with a panini and watch the people go by.  But the rents were high, and ultimately (Tom heard from the owners), it just wasn't worth it -- the landlord was making more than the business owners were.

The closing of Toscano & Sons led to a long and surprisingly lively and constructive discussion on Nextdoor about the difficulties that neighborhood businesses face.  My response when my favorite places close is blame the landlords for rents that are too high, which may or may not be fair; there was discussion in the Nextdoor thread about whether or not Virginia Highland is still a shopping and dining destination for people from outside the neighborhood, with competition from other commercial areas, like Ponce City Market and Krog Street Market and Inman Quarter.  There were complaints about Park Atlanta, which is always fair game in my book, but others pointed out that most of us can easily walk or bike there so parking should not really be so much of a deterrent for us in the nearby neighborhoods. There were discussions about the mix of businesses in Virginia Highland, pointing out that there were only so many bars and boutiques the neighborhood could support, and some proposals for what kind of businesses we'd like to see in the neighborhood, with most of the suggestions not sounding very viable to me (a lot of focus on "organic" and "locally sourced" which doesn't go so well with "inexpensive").  There was nostalgia for an independent bookstore that used to be nearby that I don't remember so it probably closed more than 25 years ago.  And some of the local business owners spoke up, and made the case that just a little more business from all of us would make a big difference to them.

There are lots of reasons to support local businesses -- we'd rather do business with people that we know and that know us than with strangers; it's more fun to walk to Morningside Kitchen than to drive to Buckhead (actually, almost anything is more fun than driving to Buckhead); and it would be so depressing if Virginia Highland or Morningside Village got replaced by, say, a Walmart.  Another reason is what the American Independent Business Alliance calls "the local economic multiplier effect" -- what we spend at locally-owned, independent businesses is far more likely to circulate in our community, contributing to the local economy, than what we spend at absentee-owned businesses, locally-owned franchises, or (in the worst possible case) a distant, online retailer.  ("Buying remotely creates almost no local benefit – just a few minutes’ work for a delivery person.”)

We shop at Costco and Target and Amazon, and will continue to, but having Toscano & Sons close and the subsequent conversation about our neighborhood businesses has made me realize that if I love having these businesses nearby, I need to support them better.  And if all of us did that -- just a little more shopping and dining in the neighborhood -- we wouldn't keep having our favorite places closing.

Yesterday, after early voting, we walked to Virginia Highland for breakfast, and I was surprised to see this in the window, where Toscano & Sons used to be:

It looks like we might have another chance at supporting our neighborhood Italian market.  I'll do better this time.

Rezoning Elizabeth Ann Lane

The developer's request for a variance at Cumberland and Wessyngton was on the agenda for the Neighborhood Planning Unit (NPU) meeting on Monday night of last week.  It's not that I thought it wouldn't go through, but I was curious what would happen.  It ended up being passed with very little discussion.

But there was a huge crowd -- a fill-up-the-sanctuary at Virginia-Highland Church-sized crowd -- and long lines to get in because they were verifying addresses on the way in. The reason for the big crowd was a rezoning request in the Lindridge Martin Manor neighborhood, which is part of our NPU.  (Lindridge Martin Manor is one of the neighborhoods that's been doing great work with the South Fork Conservancy on trails.)  Even though this didn't really have anything to do with Virginia Highland or Morningside, the notice went out widely through the neighborhood email lists that this proposed rezoning was a threat to our neighborhoods and we should show up. 

Elizabeth Ann Lane is a dead-end street off Sheridan, behind FedEx Plaza (on Cheshire Bridge, just south of I-85). 

There is commercial development to the north and west of it, a development of barely detached houses and another development under construction to the south, separating it from the strip mall where the Tara Theater and the Publix is.  So this street is nearly surrounded by commercial development.

All of the homeowners on Elizabeth Ann Lane and the adjacent area of Sheridan Road want to sell their houses to a developer who is proposing to put 89 townhomes on the site.

I didn't go into the NPU meeting with any particular opinion about this, although maybe I was included to oppose it on general principle, since the Virginia Highland Zoning Committee seemed to feel so strongly about it. 

The developer's representative made a brief presentation and implied that the houses were run down and an eyesore and they were doing the neighborhood a favor by getting rid of them.  On the subject of traffic, he said that there are fewer cars on Cheshire Bridge now than there used to be, and really, this wouldn't really make it worse.  Personally, I did not find this a highly persuasive argument.

But then the representative of the homeowners spoke.  They want to sell their houses to the developer, and the implication was that they are being offered enough for them that they can get the bigger houses they need for growing families, including accommodating other family members with special needs.  It was a good deal for them, but it wouldn't happen without the rezoning.  And already there is commercial development on two sides of them, so really, the site probably shouldn't be zoned R-4A anyway.

Then the opposition spoke, led by a (I think) a spokesperson for one of the zoning committees.  The arguments were (1) it's not consistent with the Comprehensive Development Plan; (2) it will take away some relatively affordable housing in the neighborhood; (3) the homeowners have no right to expect to make more from the sale of their homes than their value as single-family detached homes, given current R-4A zoning; and (4) the traffic is bad.  Then a man who identified himself as a professor of urban planning at one of the local universities said very emphatically several times that this was just "bad planning," without ever saying what about it was bad, and someone from the neighborhood said that traffic is so bad that the trucks that pick up trash sometimes skip his home.

While the discussion was going on, I looked up Elizabeth Ann Lane on Google Maps on my phone, and saw the map that I inserted above.  If this is what the Comprehensive Development Plan wants for this particular street - well, my thought was, that's bad planning.  And if the concern is affordable housing, the city could require the developer to provide some below market-rate units to school teachers, firefighters, and police officers.  And although the traffic may be bad, in the long run we do need density, and the developer cited in their proposal the proximity to bus lines on Cheshire Bridge and Lindbergh.

Last weekend, I went to Elizabeth Ann Lane.  Contrary to what the developer's representative implied at the NPU meeting, there was only one house that was in bad shape, and it was boarded up, unlike the derelict house near us on North Morningside.  Most of the houses look like the original houses on my street. 

Across Sheridan Road is a development called Sheridan Place, with pretty big houses with double garages that are really close together, and a new development called Sheridan Estates, with luxury homes "from the $800's" with (according to the signs) super pantries, mud rooms, and European appliances (I hope they work better than our Bosch dishwasher).  Incidentally I note that Sheridan Estates is being marketed by Muffley & Associates, along with their Dream Home program, which is where they pay a premium to buy up older homes that can be knocked down and replaced with other houses.  Given the discussion at the NPU meeting, apparently this is only permitted if the houses to be built are large, really expensive ones.

So I sided with the residents of Elizabeth Ann Lane, but the combined influence of all those opposing neighborhood associations had pretty well packed the meeting, and it was defeated, 189 to 124. I'm not completely sure this is the end of the story; I think the ultimate decision belongs to the city, and the developer's proposal concluded with the statement that any action other than approval would violate the developer's constitutional rights under the Georgia and U.S. Constitutions, so once the city makes a decision, it may still not be done. So we'll see what happens.

In the meantime, I have to wonder if anyone else looked at Google Maps before weighing in on this.

Riding a Bike, Again

My first ride on my first bicycle was not particularly auspicious.  The house we lived in when I was a small child had a steep driveway (at least that's how I remember it).   The first time I got on my new bike, I went rolling down the driveway and my mother screamed as I went sailing across the street, and then I crashed into the curb.  I do not remember being hurt but the tire didn't survive the collision with the curb.

When I was about to go off to college, I told my parents one night at dinner that I thought I needed some wheels to take to school.  They were relieved when they realized I meant a bicycle, and I got a 10 speed Schwinn that I rode all through college.  I didn't ride it every day but the two years I lived off campus I did ride it to class some of the time.  I never had a car when I was in college.

I didn't have a car in medical school, either, and at some point I bought another bicycle which I remember riding to the hospital the month I did a rotation at the Roxbury VA Hospital.  When I lived in Boston, my primary modes of transportation were walking and public transit, but I did ride my bike some.

One summer during medical school I did my obstetrics rotation in Dublin, and after I figured out that they didn't care if we were there or not, started taking three- and four-day weekends.  I made three different trips to three different parts of Ireland.  I rode the train somewhere, and then rented a bike and stayed in bed and breakfast places along the way.  One night I stayed in a bed and breakfast place run by an older lady who was very eager to find things for me to do.  She told me I should visit the beach.  I asked her where it was and she gave me very complicated directions involving lots of turns and climbing over some fences.  I told her I thought I'd have trouble getting there and would probably get lost.  She said she'd have her dog Joey take me there.  She called the dog, and said, "Joey, take her to the beach," and the dog headed to the end of the driveway and turned to the right.  There seemed to be nothing I could do but go with him, and he took me to the beach.  This was a rocky beach and as I recall it was an overcast day; this was not the kind of beach where you sunbathe, but the kind where you wear a sweater and walk around with your hands in your pockets and think about death.  So I was glad to be there with the dog for company, and when I was ready to leave he got me back to the house and I had salmon for dinner.  That was the summer where I learned about topographic maps and if the lines were too close together, it was difficult bicycling.

Later I lived in Durham and used to ride my bike around downtown in the evening, although by then I did have a car.  It was the same when I lived in Nashville and Baltimore -- I didn't ride a lot, but I did ride sometimes.  I knew where to go and what times of day would feel safe for riding.  Then, I moved to Atlanta, and I stopped.  It didn't feel safe, so I just didn't ride.  That was 25 years ago, and I didn't ride a bike again.

Of course in recent years some things have changed.  There's the Beltline, and the new extension of Piedmont Park to Monroe, very close by, and finally the light installed that stops the cars for a safe crossing to the park.  Before each of the last several Streets Alive events, I thought this would be the one that I would finally do on a bicycle, but I didn't.  Last year I looked at bikes at a bike shop a couple of times, but I never rode one.

Last weekend it was beautiful weather, and we wanted to get out of the house on Sunday afternoon.  So Tom dropped Iain and I off at the Beltline on Irwin Street and we walked back, all the way to Ansley and then home from there.  It took a couple of hours.  The Art on the Beltline installations are still up, and they were fun to see, but this is the thing we saw that impressed me the most:

This is at the Elizabeth Street access point to the Beltline.  I'm not sure where all these people came from, but they were probably having a late lunch in one of the restaurants nearby. 

Atlanta Streets Alive was on Highland weekend before last.  We were on our way home and saw there was a new bike shop that had opened up in Virginia Highland, between George's and Moe's and Joe's.  We stopped in and chatted and I looked at a couple of bikes, but I didn't ride any and we headed on home.

Today I'd taken the day off and Tom and Iain are in Florida.  So after I'd walked the dog I headed back there this morning.  I rode a couple of bikes in the parking lot next to Highland Hardware.  I haven't ridden a bicycle in 25 years; I'm glad no one was paying any attention, those first couple of minutes.  I bought a bike, and after lunch, rode from our house to Piedmont Park to 10th Street to the Eastside Trail on the Beltline and then on down to Irwin Street and then back.  I'm not sure what time it was when I left, but I think it took a little over an hour (including walking up the last couple of hills, close to home, on the way back).

Dinner somewhere on the Eastside Trail?  Totally.  I'm in, just let me know when and where.

"For Sale," Again

The duplex up the street is about to be demolished and replaced with a new house, apparently.  First the "For Sale" sign went up and the tenants moved out, then it was "Under Contract",  then it was back "For Sale", then it wasn't, and now it's for sale again, but this time they are selling something else, a new home that hasn't even been built yet.

There's been no sign about a request for a variance, yet, so they are not too far along.  A trailer has been in the driveway for a while, I'm assuming for salvage of what gets salvaged when a house is demolished, but I haven't seen any action yet on the demolition front.

So that's the story.  A small brick duplex where young people used to find affordable housing in the neighborhood is going to get replaced by a large, new, expensive home.  

In Virginia Highland, there's been an effort over the last year or so to create a neighborhood master plan.  There have been community meetings and chances for comment on line and lots of strong advocacy on the neighborhood email list.  There had been a proposal to allow "accessory dwellings" -- garage apartments and so forth -- that might provide some lower cost housing in the neighborhood but I think it's gone from the current draft.  Here's what the FAQ on the plan now says:

In the survey part of the Master Plan process, some citizens expressed an interest in themselves living in such units on their own property as they age out of needing a larger home. Conversely, many community members expressed their opposition to any easing of restrictions on accessory dwelling units. As a result, the Master Plan recommends an ongoing examination of this topic, understanding the necessity of addressing the negative aspects that have historically been associated with accessory dwelling units. Loss of tree canopy, storm water runoff, increased on street parking, and backyard privacy issues are problems that will need to be addressed. The neighborhood will evaluate and review existing and additional accessory dwellings in the context of proposed upcoming city zoning changes.

Whether it's our intention or not, we seem to be determined to allow only people of a certain income level to live in our neighborhoods, between the market incentives for property owners to replace older rental housing  with new, expensive construction, and zoning that prohibits home owners from providing such housing on their property.  I can't help but think that the primary concerns don't actually have much to do with "loss of tree canopy, storm water runoff, increased on street parking, and" (my personal favorite) "backyard privacy issues."

I got a big kick out of this on line guide when I saw it last month.  The Morningside neighborhood was not even mentioned, and see that map?  We're in that big empty spot just below Lindridge Martin Manor.  Now I know it's not just housing costs that keep Morningside off the map -- there isn't much commercial activity in the neighborhood either, and that's what's on the map, mostly -- but no neighborhood as socioeconomically homogeneous as this neighborhood is is going to be a very interesting place to live.

It may be boring, but at least we have our backyard privacy.  Of course, for improving the quality of life in the neighborhood, we'd be better off with front porches.

A Sunday Afternoon Walk

The weather was beautiful on Sunday afternoon in Atlanta, and I think almost everyone went out for a walk or a bike ride.  Iain and I planned on walking the Beltline's Eastside Trail, but he decided he wanted to go to Woody's for a cheesesteak first so instead of starting at Elizabeth Street we headed down Virginia Avenue.

We were walking along Virginia Avenue towards Monroe when we heard a car horn honking repeatedly.  It was neither the short staccato honks of a car alarm nor the long blasts of the impatient or angry.  The cadence was irregular and the honker was a small fluffy dog.

Approaching Monroe Avenue, there was a great view of the skyline and the (current) end of the paved part of the Eastside Trail.

We got a late lunch at Woody's Cheesesteaks.  I had never eaten there before (I don't know how that happened, but there you have it) but Iain had;  we had cheesesteaks and chips and then headed south on the Eastside Trail.

The first thing we encountered was two violinists under the bridge.

They were excellent.  I don't know what they were playing but I enjoyed it.

There were families with their kids, people with dogs, people on bikes, people on skateboards, runners, and plenty of people just walking.  The first time we walked the Eastside Trail was during the Lantern Parade in 2012.  I still remember how weirdly disorienting it was, walking through an area I'd never been before, in the dark, but seeing the tall buildings of the city in the distance and not really having any idea where we were.  

We made a pit stop at Paris on Ponce.  I knew they sold used furniture -- I'd seen it out on their porch, alongside the trail -- but who knew they had a private party facility that was so red?  And why has no one invited us to a party there?

We went by the Ponce City Market site ("Leasing for November 2014").  Last summer there had been food vendors in the shed on Sunday afternoons but there was no one there today. 

Someone has built beautiful erosion-control fences on a bluff adjacent to the trail.  They didn't photograph so well because they were mostly in the shade.  I don't think they were part of Art of the Beltline, but they could have been.

As we approached Elizabeth Street, we were thinking ice cream, but there were many people with popsicles heading north on the trail, suggesting that King of Pops was nearby.  And indeed it was.

And here's the last photo that I took that afternoon.  I am guessing this is a father and son.  On unicycles.

We walked back on Highland and noted some restaurants that we wanted to try and stopped in Half-Moon Outfitters just to look around.  Sweet Auburn Barbecue has opened at the old Pura Vida location and FLIP Burger is adding seating on the roof, which sounds like a fun place to be, at least when the weather is like it was last Sunday.  

All the way back I was remembering other times we've walked this route.  The first time was the first Atlanta Streets Alive event that we participated in, in May 2012.  I didn't know, until then, that it wasn't too far to walk from my house to Elizabeth Street.  The poets of Free Poems on Demand at Highland and North Avenue.  There was the afternoon we looked for geocaches and mostly didn't find them but found a lot of other things.  Those memories are all knitted together, like the Beltline bluff's erosion control fence, and were inseparable from the experience of walking.  There are things you just don't see if you are moving too fast.

Addendum: The Beltline has just posted something about the erosion control structures (created and installed by Trees Atlanta) on the bluff on the Eastside Trail, with much better photos than mine.

The Neighborhoods We Want

It's a good thing that people want to live in Atlanta's older walkable neighborhoods, the neighborhoods that were built as streetcar suburbs in the 1920s or even earlier.  These older intown neighborhoods have many lovely older homes, and many have within them small commercial areas that provide walkable destinations, with neighborhood restaurants, coffee shops, bars, and small shops.  As more people want to live in these kind of neighborhoods, there's demand for housing in them.  Some people want to live in the neighborhood but want a bigger house with all the modern amenities.  So older homes are being purchased, demolished, and replaced with bigger houses.  In most parts of the city, the only requirement for newly-constructed houses is to comply with the city building code.  They are not required to be of the same scale as adjacent houses, to be of the same design as adjacent houses, or to be compatible in any way with the neighborhood.  All they have to do is meet the current building code.

This is an issue in many parts of the city as well as in Decatur.  There's currently an effort in Virginia Highland to explore Historic District Overlay Zoning for two subdivisions in the neighborhood.  This has already generated vigorous discussion on the neighborhood email list, with an active opposition group formed that opposes the designation.  Decatur's City Commission recently considered a moratorium on demolitions of single family homes.  They ended up voting against it.  In the Oakhurst neighborhood, the demographics of the neighborhood are changing rapidly.  Commissioner Kecia Cunningham told the Atlanta Journal Constitution, “For me, it’s not about ‘McMansions,’ it’s the loss of racial and economic diversity, the loss of affordable housing."

On our street, the apartments at the corner of Wessyngton and North Highland are being vacated and will be demolished soon.  I don't know what will be built there, other than that I am certain it will be three large expensive homes.  Lynsley found designs on line that a local architecture firm has proposed for the street (see this link and this one).  The two houses are contemporary, "fusing modern luxury with holistic sustainable design."  The architects note that the proposed location for these houses is "one block from some of Atlanta's best shops and restaurants."  What it doesn't say is that Wessyngton Road is still mostly made up of small ranch-style homes built during the 1950s and that these new houses that are proposed don't look anything like most of the houses on the street.  

But not all the houses on our street were built in the 1950s.  There are newer houses, some dating from a few decades ago; one of them has a quite contemporary design and is for sale now.  There also has been demolition of older homes and new construction on the street in the last few years.  Some older homes including ours have been renovated and second floors added.  It's not that small 1950s ranch-style homes are architecturally important and should be preserved; it's that demand for lots for new construction threatens existing neighborhoods by forcing out longtime residents when property values become too high.

And it's not just that.  A neighborhood is a complex adaptive system, and changing one thing can result in major and unanticipated changes in other areas.  Part of what makes Atlanta's intown neighborhoods interesting is that different kinds of people live in them, that everyone is not just alike.  Interesting neighborhoods require housing to be available across the income spectrum.  Already Morningside is not nearly as interesting as Virginia Highland, which is not nearly as interesting as Poncey-Highland, and that is why.  

I love Atlanta's intown neighborhoods, and I'm glad other people do too, but at the moment it feels to me that we are at risk of loving them to death.  The city doesn't require a Social Capital Impact Statement for new development; all there is is the permitting process.  But building codes and even Historic District Overlay Zoning are pretty blunt instruments.  We need additional and sharper instruments if we are going to shape the direction that our neighborhoods take.  Incentives and disincentives are preferable to regulations, if they'll do the job, and if there are things that the market will do without incentives, even better.  (My impression is that many of the new large intown mixed use developments do include a range of housing types; whether that's due to requirements or incentives, I don't know, but I am pretty sure it's not market forces.  Market forces are leading to an increased focus on walkability in commercial areas, according to a recent study, but not to what the authors called "social equity," which included affordable housing and accessibility.)  My guess is that new houses that look like they belong in the neighborhood probably sell for more than houses that don't, and not all the new construction is dreadful.  But the city and county need to use tax policy to help people on fixed incomes be able to stay in their homes when property values are rising.

This is my new favorite house in the neighborhood.  It was on the market in 2011, after its owner moved into assisted living.  A couple bought it, and after that work started out the site.  I assumed it was going to be demolished and replaced with a much larger, new home.  One day after that I saw them standing in the yard, and I asked.  They seemed surprised at the question.  No, they said, they they planned to renovate it.  The work is ongoing, but one of the things they've done already is enlarged the front porch.

I wish our neighbors in Virginia Highland well, as they continue the discussion about the Historic Overlay District Zoning.  But unless everyone in the two subdivisions wants it -- and that seems pretty unlikely -- it will be a tough sell.  So the discussion continues about the kind of neighborhoods we want, and what -- if anything -- we are willing to do to maintain them or improve them.

Walking in the City

The weather was nice on Saturday afternoon, not as cold as it had been, and I thought it would be a good afternoon for a walk.  I asked Iain if he wanted to walk with me down to Elizabeth Street and then back on the Beltline.  No, he said, "there's not much to do on the Beltline."  So I proposed we look for some geocaches, and he was up for that.

Geocaching (for those of you who don't know) is one of those web-enabled activities where people hide containers -- in large parks and forests, often an ammo box, in urban areas, often a film canister (who has film canisters anymore?) or small magnetic container -- that includes a log book.  If you are the person who hide the container, you post the GPS coordinates on geocaching.com and then other people can look for it.  When you find it, you sign the log book and put it back.  If it's a larger container, there may be stuff in it -- things like the small toys that come with children's meals at fast food places -- and you can take an item if you leave one for the next person who finds the cache.  All you need to participate in geocaching is to sign up on the website (it's free) and a GPS.  The handheld ones that hikers use are optimized for this and you may be able to download the coordinates directly from your computer.

We found some caches on the website that were in walking distance from our house, downloaded the information, and headed off.  We ended up not being terribly successful geocachers that afternoon, only finding 2 of the 5 we looked for (urban caches are usually small, and can be pretty difficult to find) but we found lots of other things on a several hour walk around the neighborhood.  Not our neighborhood, precisely; we were in Virginia Highland and Poncey-Highland, but it was close enough I'll claim it.

We stopped at at San Francisco Coffee and got something hot to drink (I opted for hot chocolate, which is my new favorite thing).  The commercial area in Virginia Highland was full of people and is almost always a treat to walk through.  I just finished reading Jeff Speck's Walkable City:  How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time,  and he talks about the importance for pedestrians of human-scaled buildings with lots of variety in what pedestrians see from the sidewalk, with something new to see frequently, and buildings that don't look just alike and not the fake kind of "not just alike" in the new pseudo-urban developments like the one at Piedmont and Sidney Marcus.  In short, the commercial district at Virginia and Highland is nearly perfect, except for the taking-your-life-in-your-hands crossing the street part.  And there is lots to see, walking past the Virginia Highland shops.  This is the one picture I took there.

Who thought you could make a skirt out of chicken wire and marshmellows?  Just fabulous, although I wouldn't wear it.

Farther down Highland we got to Intown Hardware, where they used chicken wire to create another construction, this one involving actual live chickens. 

Then we got off Highland and walked down a side street (I don't remember which one) where this piece of artfully constructed yard art crossed my eye.

We'd never been to the Ponce de Leon part of Freedom Park and this sculpture, by self-taught artist Thornton Dial, was an unexpected pleasure to come upon.

This sign at the Rite-Aid on Ponce de Leon speaks for itself.  

We stopped at the Majestic Diner and had a very late lunch.  I hadn't been to the Majestic in decades and the clientele seemed more upscale than I remembered.  The burger was delicious and the fries were okay, and the service excellent, and no one was living in the ladies' room.  I would highly recommend it.

Next we were back in Freedom Park, this time the section near North Highland.  We didn't find the geocache we were looking for there, but we did find this interesting and slightly disturbing installation.  I am not sure what it is.  I hope it isn't a pet cemetery. 

Then it was back to Highland, we found a nice example of yarn bombing near North Avenue and this wonderful painting was on the side of a newspaper distribution box in the parking lot near the Plaza Theater.

Farther up the street there was this great homemade sticker on the back of a traffic sign.

Besides our stop at the Majestic we also went to Urban Outfitters, where Iain got some suspenders,  Young Blood Gallery (which is changing owners and having a big sale), and found the Indie-Pendent, which I have wondered about but never quite known where it was.  It was while we were walking down the alley where the Indie-Pendent is located that Iain told me he didn't want to live in Atlanta when grows up, that he wants to live in a real city with real public transportation. It might change by then, I told him.

Later I thought about Iain's initial response earlier in the afternoon, that there would be "not much to do" if we walked the Beltline.  On the walk we ended up taking there were things to see all along the way, and on the stretches where there weren't obviously, we found things to see because we were expecting it to be an adventure.  But a park?  Not so much.  (We didn't walk Freedom Park from Ponce to Highland.)  Jeff Speck wrote about that too, in Walkable City.  "Green spaces in cities are a lovely, salubrious, necessary thing.  But they are also dull, at least in comparison to shopfronts and street vendors. ... verdant landscapes do not entertain."  That's why the I-hope-it's-not-a-pet-cemetery installation was such an unexpected pleasure to find.

It was a great afternoon.  We didn't find most of the caches that we looked for, but it didn't really matter.

Running with Santa

A week ago Saturday, Iain ran the Virginia Highland Christmas 5K. This year they registered 1200 runners. At least based on the number of people we saw walking away from Fire Station No. 19 that morning with their T-shirts and Santa hats, lots of those 1200 race numbers went to people who for whatever reason ended up not running the race. Too much eggnog the night before, perhaps? But of the ones who did run, many were dressed as elves or Santa or in one case a giant rabbit.





There was the woman in black runner's spandex wearing a red satin bra and thong over her the black spandex. There was the couple in footed fleece pajamas, and the middle-aged woman wearing the Christmas tree skirt as a cape. We saw our neighbor Aaron, unobtrusively dressed in normal running attire. And there were the dogs wearing sweaters or tinsel or antlers or Santa hats. It was a marvelous, quirky neighborhood event.



Finally, it was time for the runners to go to the starting line, which was on Los Angeles, not far from the fire station. It was a great scene of Santa-hatted runners filling the street curb to curb for just about as far as one could see. I walked back up Highland toward Morningside Presbyterian, where the race ended, to wait for Iain. On my way I saw an Atlanta police officer, manning the orange cones at an intersection. I said good morning, and thanked him for keeping the runners safe. He broke into a wide smile.

There was a woman sitting on the hood of a car with Cherokee County plates, parked on North Highland near the finish line, waiting for a runner to finish the race. I don't quite understand driving to our neighborhood, early on a Saturday morning, from Cherokee County to run this event. But there weren't many cars parked on Wessyngton that morning, so I don't think there were many people who came from outside the neighborhood. There probably were some serious runners participating (the best time overall was 17 minutes, 11 seconds), but Iain said he saw one person checking his Blackberry while running. And in the Morningside Presbyterian parking lot, along with the cases of plastic bottles of water and bananas and oranges, there were plenty of small groups in costume happy to pose for pictures.



A history of the Virginia Highland neighborhood was recently published. When streetcars ruled in Atlanta, before the cars took over, the subdivisions in Virginia Highland were suburbs. Virginia Highland -- as a defined neighborhood -- didn't exist until the Georgia highway department announced a plan to build an interstate highway through the neighborhood. An organization that had not been active, the Highland-Virginia Neighborhood Association, was claiming to represent the neighborhood, and was stating at public meetings (erroneously) that the neighborhood supported construction of the highway. From that was born the Virginia-Highland Civic Association, to distinguish it from the other group, and the VHCA became part of active neighborhood opposition to the state highway department's plans.

In 1974, the Federal government rejected the state's Environmental Impact Statement, and plans for the road were dropped. Many residents had fled to the suburbs during the years of legal battles over I-485, but the ones who stayed and the ones who replaced the ones who left rebuilt a wonderful community in Virginia Highland and Morningside, where we live. Christopher Leinburger mentioned Virginia Highland in a recent NY Times op-ed piece, "The Death of the Fringe Suburb." Neighborhoods like Virginia Highland and Morningside are good places to live. You can walk to a coffee shop or a restaurant or to Alon's, and you can run a 5K in a Santa suit. What could be better?

On Christmas eve, Iain walked to Fire Station 19 with a tin of Christmas cookies. My family made these, he told them, and we just wanted to say thank you, and Merry Christmas.