Quality of Life & Mobility
Atlanta is laid out in a way that puts cars first, a way that prioritizes people to drive to and from the suburbs over residents and their needs. This model is not sustainable. Per projections, by 2050, we will have 3 million more residents to accommodate. The only way we continue to thrive is to embrace multi-modalism.
Atlanta needs to be a city that offers safe, reliable options to residents looking to use all forms of transportation: pedestrian, bicycle, e-scooter, car, bus, train, light rail, and everything in between. To get there we must invest in and redesign our infrastructure and zone smarter. We have to get the little things right like maintaining our sidewalks (more below), to think big and embrace “complete street” redesigns and transit investments throughout our city. This entails investment in protected bike and scooter lanes, beautification of streetscapes, accommodation for bus rapid transit, and anything else that makes it possible for all modes of travel to co-exist safely and efficiently to improve quality of life for all.
Public Safety
A number of public safety issues, including our under-staffed Police and Fire Departments, have persisted for some time. Others, including escalating violent crime rates and our ongoing issues with street racing have become particularly acute in 2020. Public safety must be front of mind. It is the most fundamental city service that we provide. And at the moment, Atlanta’s government is falling short of making this the safe city that you deserve.
In a recent post, I outlined steps to positive change. Some to highlight include appointing a permanent police chief after over six months without one. We must introduce retention bonuses and invest more in equipment. I would push to use technology, including cameras, more than we do. I would also grow programs such as pre-arrest diversion and others that compassionately lower crime rates while taking a burden off of APD. It also entails broader goals such as the creation of an Office of Nightlife and Culture, greater emphasis on inter-governmental cooperation with counties and others, as well as using city design to rethink spaces and make them safer.
Notably, all of the above should and can occur as we continue to have a conversation around reforming areas such as use of force protocols as well as expanding community policing approaches. Importantly, we should have this conversation with APD at the table, so that morale improves and we work towards collaborative, substantive solutions rather than empty gestures.
Arts & Culture
Atlanta’s arts and culture community is central to our economy, quality of life, and international influence. Yet, despite the success of our creative community, City Hall invests far less in the arts than peer cities who are striving to achieve our level of success. Since taking office, I have actively sought out ways to strengthen public support for arts and culture. This included the successful push to more than double the budget for the City’s Office of Cultural Affairs. I’ve also introduced a bill, entitled the Arts Development Ordinance, which identifies a new revenue stream for public art through an expansion of our “percent for the arts” program to include private development that receives public tax support. The goal is to dedicate more dollars for public art – broadly defined beyond just murals and statues to include things like greater support for arts non-profits and allotments of square footage for performances and installations. I’m hopeful that this and other measures move forward and that we take a more active role in supporting our creative community.
Housing & Development
As Atlanta grows we must embrace density if we are to provide sufficient affordable housing. Like many American cities, we have struggled to keep up with demand, and as a result, it has become more expensive, sometimes prohibitively so, for people to live here. Our strength and success will rely, in significant part, on ensuring economically diverse neighborhoods — and so we must act.
Solutions will vary from neighborhood to neighborhood. There is no one policy change that will solve our housing challenges. The recently passed $100 million housing bond will allow us to introduce abatements and subsidies where appropriate, especially for low-income and long-time residents. But we cannot overlook the importance of zoning. As Chair of the Zoning Committee beginning in January 2021, I will be working diligently with our City Planning Department to steer Atlanta’s zoning re-write to fruition. A big piece of that will be devising ways to responsibly and thoughtfully foster greater density in our city so that, among other things, we can use market forces to drive housing prices down and make it more affordable for everyone to live in Atlanta.
City Services & Sidewalks
Ambition and big ideas are key. But its the little things city government can do that make the most immediate impact on our lives. City Hall must do a better job delivering the core services residents expect. This means making sure your trash gets picked up on time, the streetlights work, and our sewer system is functional. It means repairing our cracked sidewalks and broken roads with far greater urgency.
Pedestrian infrastructure is perhaps my greatest area of focus. Atlanta has a backlog of over $250 million in past due sidewalk repairs. The City’s Department of Transportation estimates we have another $500 million in areas where new construction is warranted. And that’s before we even get to roads and bridges.
Since taking office in 2018, I have been working to address this challenge. I introduced bills to get these fiscal estimates put together, so that we could understand the size of the problem. More recently, I passed legislation asking for prospective multi-year financial models by which we might make these overdue infrastructure investments. This work is ongoing. Rest assured that it will remain one of my top priorities as we continue striving to find sustainable solutions.
Climate
Atlanta has pledged to run on 100% renewable energy by 2035. It’s paramount that we follow through on this commitment. There are a number of ways we can approach this. Examples include electric busing, greater protections for our tree canopy, and looking at waste and recycling issues.
On the point of recycling, single-use plastics and non-compostable serviceware are an increasingly harmful threat to our environment. They litter our public spaces and waterways and endanger both wildlife and human life. In an effort to encourage businesses and others to phase out their use, I passed a bill in 2018 banning plastic bags, plastic straws, and Styrofoam from all City of Atlanta buildings, including Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. I also brought forth a Resolution asking that private partners with a large environmental footprint join us in this effort towards a cleaner, greener Atlanta.
I will continue striving to take substantive action at the municipal level while also continuing to ask that our state and federal leaders do more to confront this existential crisis to our planet.
Participatory budgeting
Trust in your governing institutions and elected officials lies at the heart of effective democracy. A part of that trust is knowing that your voice and experience guides policymaking. You have the right to live in a city free of corruption and one that spends your tax dollars in a way that you feel is transparent and fair.
Participatory Budgeting (PB) is a model growing in popularity across the world. Through PB, a % of a city’s budget is set aside so that residents may propose ideas and then vote on how to spend it. I think PB could be transformational if implemented across Atlanta. That’s why, in 2020 we launched Downtown Decides!, a $1 million transportation-specific PB Pilot, to test this idea. The program was a great success with hundreds of ideas submitted, thousands voting, and 17 winning projects selected which are now in various stages of construction. Click here to learn more.
My goal in the years to come is to build on these efforts and grow PB so that it may ultimately constitute 1-2% of the city’s budget and be a catalytic force in restoring trust in government across Atlanta.
Guaranteed Income
Atlanta has the worst, or near worst (depending on source) wealth mobility and income inequality rates among major American cities. Those who are born with little in our city, have next to no chance to improve their circumstance. A city government that fails to provide sufficient ladders to opportunity is a big factor in that.
The most immediate way to address this challenge is to provide direct cash payments to those in need. In case study after case study, including the 2019 CARES ACT, we have seen these programs be successful. Rather than deciding for residents how we can best assist them (e.g. rental assistance, transportation subsidies), we give them the financial tools to decide for themselves what their greatest pain point is and address it. And the data shows that money is responsibly spent.
I am presently in the process of launching Atlanta’s first Guaranteed Income pilot, right here in District 2. The Old Fourth Ward Economic Security Task Force convened in 2020, with a summary report to be released soon. We are in the process of seeking philanthropic -- non-public — dollars to launch the pilot. Click here, to learn more.