More on Atlanta Highway

Brian was kind enough to link to my column on Atlanta Highway, and he offered some of his thoughts on the potential to revitalize the corridor ...

1) One of the commenters says that "those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it." He or she is exactly right. In Oconee, we have the opportunity to learn from Atlanta Highway (and countless other examples in Georgia) and not repeat those mistakes. We can and should require higher-quality buildings, require long lasting trees, develop a different type of street grid that accomodates uses besides big boxes, etc. in our retail zones. Otherwise, as our retail infrastructure expands, the older properties will decay much sooner than we realize.

2) As you can tell by the comments in the article, the most visceral Athens and anti-Athens folks want nothing to change. This is the danger of listening to these types of feedback channels. The fact is, Athens -- rightly or wrongly -- created the mess that is Atlanta Highway. The question is 1) why is that area consistenly ignored by the leadership in Athens (too big a problem to tackle? no voters in the commercial districts?) and 2) what can be done to improve it. A CID would activate the private sector to work on solutions, as opposed to relying on government.