My Athens

My "Athens Rising" Archive

For a few months last year, I helped write the Athens Rising column--an opinion  column about local  development, planning and architecture issues--for Flagpole Magazine, the weekly alternative newspaper here in Athens, Ga.

The column's main writer--Kevan Williams--had asked me to write the column every other week while he traveled out West to places like Portland, Ore. And that's what I did--having fun, mostly--from August through December 2010.

Kevan's back in town now, and I'm off traveling abroad and happy--for now at least--to be free of deadlines.

Here are the columns I wrote:

• August, 25, 2010:  Future of Downtown Athens

• September, 8, 2010: A Look at a Complex Zoning Decision

• September 22, 2010: Exploring an Overlooked Neighborhood

• October 6, 2010: Adding Affordable Housing, Avoiding Gentrification

• October 20, 2010: Tapping Students for Downtown Density

• November 3, 2010: Grocery Store Dreams, Part 1

• November 17, 2010: Grocery Store Dreams, Part 2

• December 1, 2010: Dilapidated Buildings, Factories and Cities

 

Walkability Linked With Higher Property Values

Savannah Morning News reporter Adam Van Brimmer writes about how enhancing walkability will improve property values in Savannah neighborhoods:

"People will pay for livability," [walkable communities expert Dan] Burden  said. "You change a road and calm the traffic, and you increase property values multiple blocks deep. You put in sidewalks and trees, and values go up even more."

Done in tandem, road changes and sidewalk and tree improvement boost values from $5,000 to $35,000 on average, Burden said.

Considering most Savannah neighborhoods are built out - constrained by established roadways or the natural geography - improving walkability could be the key to sustaining and growing property values.

Same goes for Athens.

Read the full article.

Thanks to Sustainable Savannah.

Image credit: Richard Burkhart/Savannah Morning News