My life

my life and

your life

are here.

Your life.

My life.

I guess addresses your recent book which
she has a copy paper on Amazon people.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.
Lastly I want to thank Leslie and

the Danes for putting this together.

I think it's really great for
us to have an opportunity to have some

dialogue about the issues that
we're facing and worrying about.

And my thing.

Today is really going to focus on
the design aspect of urban design but

to give you a little bit of background.

The idea of urban design is to
make places that people want to.

Be places that work for people and
to figure out how to make that happen.

So that's really what
this theme of this is and

it focuses on the design aspects and I
really appreciate everybody being here and

you know there's some seats up here for
those who are wanting to sit down so

the the book.

Why did I write this book.

Well.

There's a lot of tax there's a lot
of writings on urban design but

my concern from my experience which
is been in the vein of trying to get

the stuff done is that a lot of times the
front end of the books that I've seen and

the backend are left out.

So basically the front end is
why why do we care who's it for

what does it consist of what what
motivates us what's the purpose

of urban design Who is it for and that.

So I include a significant
discussion about people and

the need the increasing in tendency for
citizen guided design and

development processes which I
get into in a little bit and

on the backend How do you
actually get it done.

What do you what are the steps that
can enable practitioners citizens

professionals to to actually go forward
and get the stuff on the ground

which is been what I've been trying
to do for about the last forty years.

So for citizens it's a guide on
how to assure that they can make

their places better for
practitioners it's really an X.

or Taishan Hey guys let's gather so
engineers landscape architects architects

planners and other associated disciplines
that actually make the places that

represent the civic environment we have
a still an alarming disconnect between

the disciplines in the cultures of
the disciplines and for students.

It's a comprehensive introduction to
the theory and practice over design so

just briefly the content of
the book is Table of Contents

there are five parts the first part is
background which is the why who where.

Mark the content what urban design
is made up of is a second part

physical environment human activity in the
connections or infrastructure between what

are the principles and I organize the
principles and in design obviously also

change because so much better design
is about change organization.

It doesn't happen without
organizational principles and

then the part that's often left out
the actual process is an understanding of

the rules that result in the kinds
of environments that we live in

how to turn some of those rules and to
make the places that we live in the kinds

of places we want to live in instead of
the ones that are sort of been determined

in a seemingly mindless way by attorneys
and bureaucrats like me and so on.

And techniques.

How how how to help students and
citizens actually use the tools that

are available and apply them for the
purpose of improving the quality of their

environment and finally application
strategies how do you actually do

with some of the issues that date issues
like issues like sprawl or density or

transit transportation balance those
kinds of things the diagram on

the right is simply to show that each of
the elements in this construct are in

fact interacted with each other and
one of the core premises of urban design

is that you can start at any point you
change the room you ripple all the way

back through to why you're doing it in
the first place you change the physical

environment like climate change it jumbles
everything else up the point here is that.

Urban Design is not a linear predictable
cause and effect type of a process.

It's an interactive process the
complication comes from the interaction

not from the elements within them.

So design as a design issue.

It's not about the objects and
space but about the space and

it's not about a single client which is
the overwhelming dominant practice for

architects landscape architects but
about the people who show.

The space we make sort of
standard starting point and

design is the figure ground type maps
that show where the objects are and

where the field is or where the ground
is in this particular case is a slice of

Atlanta and you can take a slice in
almost any city and find the sort of dot.

Patterns that occurred the sort
of naturalistic Eve octave of

an of the natural world subdivision swirly
streets often associated with sprawl

the sort of grid that's the foremost
planned type grid arrangement or

the modernist type arrangement both here
and up there where people are basically

treated as side which making
storehouses to put people on homes.

It's gone now so
we don't have that pattern anymore.

The kinds of dynamics that
set the context for an R.V.

The tension between individual
aspirations and community aspirations

constantly in interaction if you think
about zoning exactly what zoning is

about an individual might want to put
a gas station next to your house.

It's not in the communities interest
how do you mediate that tension and

some of the whole issue of private and

public the kinds of things that happen
inside buildings I consider generally

kind of private the connectivity to
the private buildings and that sort of

a rough diagram of the way the spaces
work and interact with each other.

Urban Design is about
the sidewalks the street.

The building entrances and engagement
with the street here and plan there and

section.

Public private public.

So in design is primarily involved
with the public environment the civic

environment and in every urban space and
every civic environment.

There are the footprints
of the private sector

the developer the investment
the creation of buildings and spaces.

Community whose rate of life is affected.

Private sector is motivated by profit if
the private sector entities that build

places don't profit
they go out of business

community is motivated by making
the place better or at least not

worse the government's main currency
is service is a government providing

service to the whole of the people that
put it in place and how does it mediate

what are often tensions between private
sector initiatives community desires.

It's own sort of purposes and goals.

This is an interesting way of sort
of staging the the discussion

the dialogue the dialectic between
building design and place design.

But if there was I do's conference and
Aspen over the summer and

Frank Gehry had center stage and
was giving a speech about

the about his work and I think a lot of us
are probably heard Frank Gehry he's a very

effective speaker and
I'll just give you all.

If you can can everybody read that I just
step back for a second let you read it.

The article was by
James Fallows in the Atlantic.

So

basically those are the comments of
a person who's been really a political

and hater.

Neither a planner nor designer designer
nor architect and I think it really

sets up the sort of added Toodle
tension between building design and

place design they not
know who Fred can't is

Fred can't I think everybody knows who for
Gary is right Fred.

Ken is the heir to a man named
William Holley white his disciple

a sociologist like my wife Peggy
not an architect not a designer.

You know not evan easer
Howard a court reporter

Clarence Perry a sociologist but this guy.

William Holly White is the one
that decided you know why is it

that we had this is back in the sixty's
Why is it that architects are creating so

many spaces that are out in
the public nominally accessible to

the public that the public
avoids like the plague.

There they don't engage people he says
it's actually hard to design is that

are public that people don't want
to go to how if they've done this.

And so we want about making a very
systematic time lapse photography

actually examining people's behavior in
space and suggesting that maybe we ought

to take our cue about people's behavior
in space from what people do in space and

maybe we ought to rearrange our
design precepts to accommodate that.

So that's what he's been doing Fred can
who is his disciple started a group called

Project for public spaces in New York and
nonprofit which I think is very important

that does consulting on quality of place
at all scales and by now around the world.

So Fred can interesting dialectic
there now going back a few

years to Jane Jacobs and cities have the
capability being something for everyone.

Only because and
only when they're created for everybody.

So I think that's a that's
a really key point.

And then those points are.

Stood up there.

Everything about the design of places is
substantially different than design of

objects the client.

So the key difference and

a key point of understanding the client
is the public not an individual

client private the private somebody
the canvas in urban design is very

different normally architecture
practice is a project it starts with

a piece of ground a program
an investor hired the architect

design the building the building gets
design goes back and forth gets.

Plans develop specs develop a bit out
constructed and the projects over.

Recently we've seen an uptick uptick in
the importance of life cycle costing so

architects are concerned about
what's happens five ten twenty years

down the road in urban design you come
into a place that's already happening and

you leave a place that's
already happening and

you hope it's better than
it was when you got there.

That's pretty fundamental difference and
urban design is not a project.

It's a process it's a program
that goes on and on.

So in the book for example I describe
some of the principles for urban design.

What are the things that distinguishes
urban design that we need to be aware

of and conscious of as we go
forward in the design process.

So it matters.

I think I don't need to elaborate
too much on that we have

ninety five percent of this
in our urban environment and

maybe five percent of that
people respond well to that

this is not a place you particularly
want to be you might have to be.

The I do designing to
reflect rather than express

again design can be thought
of as my expression my thing.

My piece of work sort of like
Frank Gehry was talking about.

And the this is sort of a kid's
page figure ground right.

The question is who.

What is the relationship
between the trophy or the pig.

You know about trophies
are we about people.

Listen.

Look respond very different than

some of the other issues that
come up in a planning process.

It's also critically important.

Holistically and very consciously and

what happens here is we have the sort
of disciplines that are cool for

creating the world we live in so light
probably being the most prominent in terms

of its actual impact planning
because it sets the regular.

Architecture because it designs
the buildings that framed

the space it's public and

landscape because they do their best to
cover up the mistakes of the first three.

So the idea here is to come into
really foster collaboration

among the disciplines as an urban
design or for forty odd years.

My main job has been to try to
synthesize and pick up the value and

importance to those disciplines
contribution to a whole.

I'm not in any of them but I'm pretty
conscious of the key baseline criteria and

motivations and that's suppose of each of.

So design skills themselves are essential.

The picture I showed tech square in and
anywhere us.

Reveal how important it is for the people
who are making decisions about our civic

space to have a clue about what
they're talking about will look like

an awful lot of what we do in our you
know is written out by attorneys.

Codes of lost there there
is owning ordinances

there comprehensive development plans.

There are public works standards and
all kinds of

stuff that's written down it's always
linear it's always in black and white.

It's always in words and it doesn't
really give you any idea what it's

going to end up like for
the last forty years or so.

A few designers have started
entering into this way.

Then I want to get involved in zoning for
example and

begun to act in a consciousness
of what the place is described

in legal text as actually
ends up being a result I'll

give you an example one of my colleagues
from New York many many years ago.

Richard Weinstein was
teaching at U.C.L.A..

And what he did was to take the loss and
code of pseudonyms to disk drive

what it would look like if and
it put everybody in the UK and horror.

You know we can't have this and
it began to kind of process that is now.

Not true about introducing
the formal app implications of

zoning ordinances into the consciousness
of people so we can make better decisions.

What else have we got here you're drawing
measuring representing critically

important and those of you who
are my students know this very well.

You've got to know how big stuff is
you've got you relate the community.

You've got to make conscious
the unconscious was in response as

you have it experienced.

The world and you got to be able to
represent or communicate that and

designing at multiple scales we
design in urban design both for

the walking around person.

We also have to design for the car.

We really have to scale so

if you think of scale as big ship
between your size your experience.

Then we have a walking around size and
we expect that.

Because of the nature of how they
organize their storefronts or

their windows or so
we also have the car size.

You know where I'm six feet and
two feet wide and so

on but I'm also four and a half feet high
and eight hundred feet long and four and

a half feet wide and
I move at a high speed.

So in urban design you have to be
very kind of the motion part and

then there's bicycling in France and
so on as well.

Also we have to design.

At the scale a very small
it's like Crossroads or

the intersection and
all the way up to the region.

All of you every everything can see from
the region has design implications and

urban Bre want to trying to
help people picture what it

might actually look like what it looks
like but how it works holistically.

When I left one out this far.

It's actually pretty important this
is something that we do very well in

architecture schools that other schools
don't do law schools and so forth.

We train people to think
holistically comprehensively three

to simultaneously when
you're designing a building.

You have to know how how wide it is
where you have to be able to see behind

yourself as well in front of yourself up
down and understand it as a whole object.

That's a different kind of training and
then people get in most of the disciplines

that actually end up building the world
that we live in one favorites is that

as urban designers we have to be really
conscious concerned about Islam.

It's all right with us and figure out
a way to back the problem into it.

Couples of that get worked
well in Baltimore and Boston.

It works so well it's faster and
then every city in the country wanted

a festival marketplace and
almost all of them tanked or

think about closing back
in the fifty's where it

was the main street and it worked because
huge amount of intensity on it and

then everybody close manged all died and
supported the move to the suburbs.

So very important to be aware of solution
isn't the only thing about diagrams.

Is it isn't an either or
thing it's a both and.

So it is a.

Big ideas and solutions but we have to
constantly check them against them is and

let the problem inform
which way we make choices.

Coming up with a solution.

The one of the Atlanta that I think
is fascinating is we are told to

always looking for both new projects
to solve the bombs the Soap Project.

It's never works.

We don't build a cohesive community always
sort of gravitating to new projects.

It's the incremental side to get sort
of downplayed it's very important.

It's a incremental side it
reflects how people work and

engage their space and
come to love it and care for it or

not not the bold new project would usually
comes from a private sector developer or

sometimes Berman and usually it's
sort of a project not a process and

a plop in the middle of a sea
of nothingness that we have in

Atlanta in the region also translates into
the whole idea of believing somehow that

their prescriptions and indeed zoning
building codes and so on are prescribed.

But they often lose sight of what
it is we're trying to achieve.

So they are taking people
things away tell them to do is

probably not going to work in our own
history of the failures of prescriptions.

Let's start with C.M. then to Congress and

know these are C R C Take two of
them will then look or boozy ace and

several other designers for
thought that the way to solve.

Urban problems was a very very

directive very prescriptive way which
would have torn down Paris torn down but.

In fact has accounted for urban renewal.

If you remember the image of bone homes.

That's a child of the core boozy and
modernist idea to take city's problems.

Up with some.

Question but focused and to achieve.

And you have to design in
the context of motion.

Really.

Thanks to this I mentioned what it was
that you as an urban designer cut it

it's already happening and you leave the
situation hopefully better than you found

it but you have in order to have to
think about how places work before seven

because public places are public
places twenty four stop time of day.

I'm a week placed in a week at.

Their seasons.

Only sings and the fact that we see period

places ocean walking cycling
in transit cars whatever.

So that's another sort of key principle
and for each of these are sort of

list of what you really need to consider
as you're approaching a problem.

So this is a last line we can open it up.

It says We come along and maybe one

of the things that I experience
perceived an increasing good on and

well is the continuing
it is an activism and

access that citizens have
elements of water and

design is made up of
the World Wide Web has made images and

approaches and design choices available
you know you can go on project for

public spaces website and you can see
a run of work that they have done for

now thirty forty years working with
citizens to figure out how to make that

and I had a student yesterday who
gave a report on a place in Detroit.

Got all but Detroit is actually
engaged by a project for

public spaces to create a space
it's actually attracting people or

of Detroit in a way that
hasn't happened since.

And put his renaissance side of the way.

So the environmental reform.

I don't IMO is rather.

I don't want to go into any detail but

everything from climate
change to air quality to.

The transportation reform what right now.

Interesting.

It will Hood spoke a couple days ago one
of the points that he made to a big group

down at the Georgia World Congress Center
how he had found

that it was communities and citizens that
were in the forefront of pushing for

transportation change the expansion of
choices in transportation not coming

from the Guy Bickley not really coming
from the private quality of life

initiatives that citizens have engaged
in all over the all over the city.

I think of.

The president but Mountain Freeway
that were stopped by citizens think of

all of this historic buildings even though
we tore down a lot that by citizens

think of the trees that have been
planted in Atlanta is not by

to do with any of the professions not the
initiative any private sector person not

the initiative of government government's
job to respond to that kind of thing.

Think of sidewalks sidewalks were in
the gutter so to speak fifteen years and

a group of citizens led by state sample
has lifted the importance of sidewalks for

connectivity as a first a city and
now a regional and

even a state so that rise of citizen
activism I think is crucial.

We would have had a combined
sewer Hopper overflow

sewer plant in the middle of the green
in Piedmont Park had it not been for

citizen push back and the citizens often
these when I talk citizens is they

do include more practitioners they do
include people who are working elsewhere.

The private sector but they're not there.

That's not saying it.

They're doing it because to lend support
to a community initiated activity.

So we've had a lot of improvement in the
way that the perfect Urban Land Institute.

Starting about fifteen or so ago started
realizing that this holistic approach

in the quality of the environment
as a whole was in.

And started asking their membership
which is mostly developers to start

thinking about it.

One of my colleagues from back days
been leading that organization

he just stepped down a guy
named Rick Roseanne.

The congressman who didn't the New
Urbanism has started up and bringing a lot

of attention and focus on the importance
of form and considering what our future.

AI has a community is by design committee
that sort of an original design assistance

team a route that program and is trying
very hard to get architects to think more

holistically about the importance of their
skills to apply to the improvement of

the civic environment the A.P.A.
in the S.L.A. have now relative to urban

design architecture and engineering
firms all over the country are setting

up urban design where David Greene and
Ron Gabel and

Jeff Williams graduates of this program
DAVID Well I'm graduates that up and

urban design conscious defined urban
design capability within their firm

to respond to demand based Citizens
aspirations to live in a better place and

we probably as good and strong and

diverse an urban design program
as anywhere that I know about and

we have a range of viewpoints Doug Allen
has been this for a long time.

Hart Randy is in the wilderness for

thirty five years laboring
isolette we have the Center for

quality and we have Mike Michael.

And we have architecture
in the city planning

that are keenly interested in sort
of coming to grips with this.

So I think it's pretty positive
bottom line though in my view and

in that runs throughout the book is that
this process is an heir to the people

to adopt the places that they live and
improve them of them really depend upon

citizens upset everything I said

yeah just

lost it all.

And

we're going to leave with an urban design.

It's fair to say there
are at least maybe even more

people who are involved in urban
design who believe that it's a unique

discrete mystical profession that has
to be done a particular certain way and

what process be good.

That's what created or merino and
so on that the way out.

You know there are people who are probably
more gravitate toward who say no

the evaluation to be responding
to all these I've been

a public servant most of my career working
my you know I moved to Atlanta I had all

of a sudden went from Berkeley where I
had sixteen hundred professors as my boss

to be having four hundred fifty
thousand citizens of the US and so.

Not improving the conditions and
quality of life for

the areas where we're responsible for
everyone then we're falling short.

So the response to the needs and desires
even is conflict full as they might be.

That's why I put so
much emphasis on the end I do honor

being a synthesizer and
the goal was not to compromise

the goal was to take the strengths of
each position and find a new position.

That's not comedy either one of them that
actually made better than I thought it

could but they might not have everything
that they started out wanting the whole

day and accessibility is critical and

we should be responding to that and
their creative ways to do it and

you know the initial reaction
I'm sure you've had this.

I don't want to mess with too hard.

That's going to cost too much
doesn't screw up my design.

You've ever heard that.

Yeah you're right.

Those are the models and

another point here is the fact I'm
beautiful in one place doesn't mean you

can do the same thing more.

Well we never really got along really

really well.

No one on

the right wing in my line.

You're

rooting

for

everybody

right.

Like I want to

time do we have one on the first
point I think if that if you go

back to the content of urban design three
spears one of the people's activities.

What do we do we get up put on
clothes we go out make a list.

We've been doing that for
as long as there been people and

we've been trying to seek
shelter to do that and

even though you know you might have a
release with a bathroom that has all kind

of stuff on a bottom line is you come out
pretty much the amount if you went out and

watched ten thousand years the same same
outcome that isn't changing too much.

It's changing a little bit.

They go.

The bill world and

the natural world which are also in
constant interaction with each other.

Haven't changed that much
although they are changing.

They're changing a lot
because of the human agency.

Dynamic part which made
reference to is the kind of

doctor the street system of travelling
where you're trying to travel to

how you get water how you get
Christie where energy comes from and

what kind of future that has
a whole impact indications.

Ocean in the last fifteen or

twenty years on spatial thinking
that's a really dynamic area and

I think that accounted for the stress
placed on her but more than anything else.

I mean China was pretty
cool until everybody got.

You know when I was a shine in one nine
hundred seventy six there were cars and

the roads people were walking the fabric
to maintain itself and so on.

Now they've got belts around Beijing.

It's that's the that's
part of the dynamics and

city change the issue of of regulation.

I think is not that has
caused all the of life and.

I think there's always been and
hadn't necessarily been called zoning but

you know better than I do about Louis the
thirteenth and Housman all that was a lot

of regulation involved private public
partnerships building pieces of cities.

So I don't think that part has changed and
I think the regulation of the role of

government and regulation is always
to mediate the best outcome for

the necessarily agree with all
parties that make places happen and

regulations need to change and
when I got to Atlanta.

We had terrible zoning.

I mean the way the city looked
you think of that slide I showed

of a typical strip Commercial Street
things that cost that.

One was owning all the buildings to be
set back forty feet or more one was

public works code would
prototype side walks over to

the opposite cars were the main thing
starting in the fifty's everything had to

bend to the to the will
of the automobile and

the third thing was a utility
companies that could go overhead.

And so one could try to fix
those rules trying to enable

people who wanted to do the right.

Be able to do the right thing.

So we made a lot of changes in
the zoning code to enable changes

think is probably the most
dramatic example for

anyone who's been around ten years or
so midtown this month.

That's a lot of utility line that back.

And not much happening and they went
through a whole vision in which the city

was a strong supporter provided that they
included the neighborhoods all around and

little businesses not
just big businesses and

the outcome was rezoning all of
Midtown rezoning of all of Midtown is

consistent with and helpful in guiding
the development that's now made it a more.

It's not perfect it's a more agreeable
public place and a lot of private places.

So I don't think regulation is
the problem I think flexibility and

regulation is a problem when I
started this stuff at the city.

I explained to the city council
the idea of having is owning code and

and saying that that has to be the zoning
code for all times a big mistake.

Zoning code has to be flexible and
respond to citizens who desire a better

place to live in the rules that
will make that happen so that

sort of increasing the number of people
have an impact on those rules and

in their consciousness and their
sophistication midtown again permit that

shows up at the at the city planning for
it will have a special.

Is referred to called the development and

that is an alliance one of the things the
committee the communities were insistent

in the city was that they make the group
have more citizens than businesspeople so

it's for the neighborhood people in three.

So they have to argue and debate and
discuss what's going to be respected and

most of business people have
really happy because guess what.

Almost everybody has invested in it.

The second question.

Don't.
To be a long one zero

zero zero zero

zero zero zero zero.

Actually what I was thinking

I want to talk about how do we import and
the infrastructure isn't in determining

how city works and functions and how
people relate to their public works codes.

And our job was to try
to synthesize the and

used both kind of down bucket and
west and work.

The the master plan.

First of all is human to

develop an element of the conference or
development plan has always

been transportation recently
that they did a thorough and

thoughtful look at all the of
Atlanta was about how they connected

Lanna plan comprehensive transportation
as part of the development of these.

Or aspirational but

community or
in the case of Atlanta there were hoods.

I would like to see people think for
our community.

If this and I'm involved in the studio
now for the neighborhoods around and

in which were.

Communities to come to
an agreement about what.

Housing jobs all these issues.

So the conference to develop a plan.

Nonetheless even though it's
a guiding document is true in force.

I think owning guidance and
increasingly been a merger

with public and
planning on the issue of street.

Street.

It's really critical.

They did it downtown we

did it was to put it

up the sidewalk design it backs
relative to quit and sidewalk.

Probably not the way to do it but
it works.

So when I do you see an initiative
that the Institute for

transportation engineering and the got new
urbanism done which is to come up with

an integrated is that it would count
the design and with the design.

It's like they didn't get it.

We really should be looking arm and
said I'd walk might work in one place and

not another or twenty in place and
not another so

prescriptions all the time
without reference.

And if we make a mistake.

Maybe help as an answer.

There's is that one that shows all the
different spheres that are all work and

I see there in every civic environment.

If you change a rule as in the.

Some all decide to grow
a couple weeks ago started

driving on the right side of the street he
decreed it on the left side of the street.

And they had a big pushback from
the bus drivers bus operators because

they were required to change not just
the opening shot from ones but the where

the steering column land Well that
wasn't cheap and I don't know what the.

I don't think that that's
in an ideal world the way

to make these kinds of changes the decree
your own through decree approach.

The thorniest I've been fact
famous somebody a combination of

private sector developers who are looking
to do what make a profit and government.

Poor people live here
if it's Robert Moses.

Here's a good way to wipe them out.

We can put a road or poor people live
here and we'll move them to these

modernist towers and
they'll all be happening in Paris and

live in more so they built towers
all around Paris and silent

using the modernist model of thinking
of people actually interchangeable.

I'm being one of storing be not
responding to people's daily needs.

I think I think I think
the conference developed plan

when I was then there we

have Mayor Franklin decided to

keep the dialogue going
in a neighborhood of

traditions that will continue if

they're not informed they don't
you know they're likely to takes.

But all our professions both end of it.

They have made huge mistakes and

I think it's the attitude just sort
of like the attitude that Gary and.

And and it would be better for

somebody else without I'm a member
of Peggy read a thing about design

right back to I guess Iraqi
background practiced.

How to judge all day.

And realize it's Cyprus and

she was going to do this job and I
confronted her and said Well you know you

never been here how can you do a museum
for our city when you never been here and

she sort of like yeah I
don't need to go there.

I'm designing a museum.

So they fired her.

So it's that dialectic.

Or

Republican.

Right.

Or.

Thank you.

I mean you

know as well as I do the answer I don't
I don't I don't know that question is.

My my my dream and I'm older than
Doug by several years by the way

up to MS I'm Is that somehow
these these polarizing positions

have a basis for synthesis.

I don't think you know that if you if you.

I mean chance that all are probably
wanting to live in a diverse.

Live work play denser more
diverse kind of community and

they're comfortable with that I don't
think these issues have to be a knock down

drag out and I don't know that I have
a slide up there to said both and

instead of either or I would have to work
hard to find where the overlaps occur.

For example I had five points south in
Birmingham a project I did a long time ago

a dead place traffic engineer
thought the thing to do was to widen

all that and prove the flow of traffic.

People because they had shootings and

stuff like that it had a single isn't bold
hanging from the middle of the street and

three motorcycle bars that
had three buildings and

we started a process in which
listening to each other and

we're fighting I mean same kind
of thing in their position.

Isn't there something that's
motivating them and get people to form.

And a dramatic moment for this is
after some people saying we want more

trees we inspect but we want to
hear all together fighter street.

One guy did the most intractable
guy in the group was a guy

where store on the corner and he goes.

Some of these meetings for six months.

And I don't know.

You know to say I don't know I've
been never done and right from A and

I don't trust these
other people's songs but

can we all agree that it
can be better than it is.

And that sort of thing.

Fraction of the.

Yes or

no

which might change every four or
eight years

and there's sharply partisan

really.

Right.

Wow Wow.

My God they're right.

All right.

I love

that right.

Like we're hopefully here.

The Actually I had who went to an N.P.R.

you being in a day meeting couple night.

You know that she's here or not is
writing here Indian students were much

there talking about development and
two sides and

the idea was to come up with something
in which you know you can think of it

as a compromise but what I always like to
think about is what is the positive thing

that the developer is presenting what
are the part of the community wants and

where they overlap and how is the right
structure going to facilitate that

we I'll give an example.

Everybody out station in
the first underground Walmart

in the world right now has Wal-Mart
on the ground floor where you can

see it as a parking deck on top of
the Wal-Mart and has a shopping Square.

What you might like or not like it.

Depending on your design predilections
on top that came about I think

directly responsive to what you're talking
about there was a community ordinance

called a Northwest community alliance
that cut across neighborhoods in N.B.A.

use that probably would.

They didn't want to see a typical Wal-Mart
up there on I seventy five in Helmand.

So they started in to they had
a they had a corporate entity that

set up an organization they started
negotiating directly with ISIS and

talked to them about the stuff they cared
about what they wanted to see as opposed

to what they were were being asked to
get what we did was to create a zoning

a regulatory framework we couldn't mandate
that the Wal-Mart be in the basement that

we could mandate some other things that
fit properly within the zoning code and

we set up a condition zoning
that anticipated possibility and

the possible realization of the result
that the community was cared more.

And included some improvements on
how Mill Road and stuff like that.

So I think the regulatory framework has
to be somewhere between performance and

prescriptive oriented I
think it has to be flexible

enough to shift toward prescriptions or
to shift to.

I mean some in the time that I was in
Atlanta we were desperate to get anybody

to invest anything anywhere but when I
first got here coming out of the Olympics

and everybody was so I was Lana's
last rod nothing's going to happen.

Population sinking a member
having heated discussion

about the projections how many people
we actually had in the city and

often he ended up keeping
us just a little over four.

So I think the the the framework

that was one that would be encouraging
almost anybody to invest anything anywhere

as things started happening mainly because
of markets just people who grew up in the.

I don't want to live.

Over people empty nesters all those
demographics that everyone's familiar with

little by little we started seeing an
uptick in investment interest in the city

and as that happened.

We strengthen the regulations.

We have you know Kevin mo.

Right.

He did this thing down there
on the line of a bus station.

We don't want to see a gated community.

But we wanted to see investment more
than we didn't want to see in a gated

community.

So then he did that job on
Highland Avenue and now it's a fence.

It's only four feet high.

Scott little gates and

front doors facing the street when
Post Parkside went over here.

Their first idea was not to have
any doors on the street and so

we worked within midtown neighbors and
so on and came up with something

that said you've got to have doors
on the street on tenth Street and

then they don't want to have two or
three doors and we said no you got to

have more doors on the street and
six months after was open and fully least.

Representatives of post properties.

And we put the doors on the street and
it was great and

everybody came in and loved it so.

So that's sort of it has to be when
I've dug question about the framework

the policy framework has to be
flexible enough to to move and

the city councils and the mayors have to
understand that it isn't done every good.

It's done until next time.

And that takes and
that maybe gets a little

bit to Harry's question I think
if you can get people focused.

You know on the issue of
transportation Prancer the roads.

It isn't transit or roads it's both.

It's always both Even at its worst.

It's what I've been arguing
statewide I put out a little blog

a while back called Georgia
transportation a one state solution.

And what I meant was we in the Atlanta
region have to be reaching out

making contact with other may
well planning organizations

all of whom have some amount of transit
all of whom do have some transit need and

start building something for two thousand
and ten forget twenty zero nine nothing

useful is going to happen this year that
half have to sales tax saying this is no

solution is worse and what we have so
we really need to be thinking a little bit

longer range and we need to be and there
are people who are advocates for transom.

And all of these other cities.

So we need to be creating networks
that bring that to the fore and

we need to bring it in such a way
that it isn't instead of cars

because there are always
going to be cars and

somehow we have to have a framework
that allows people to make those choices

one of the one of the great programs
that they are see put together and

I think I had a note on this program
where if a community gets together and

figures out a way to build centers that
densify and provide for a walk for

future or take advantage of existing
transit planning money to do that if they

do it right and they put the regulatory
mechanisms in place to to to

strengthen that development that makes use
development then they're even in line for

getting capital funds Midtown I think
got six million dollars funds out

of the congestion management air quality
source in the federal D.O.T. so.

So those kind.

And the point of a good number like all
of the livable community initiative or

livable centers initiatives have
come from neighborhood groups and

community groups business groups I
haven't come from the government

they haven't come from the private sector.

So I really think that if you
think of transportation as

a accommodating everybody's needs and
insisting that there be choices

you begin to maybe get a way to shave
off this of the right and the left and

find some middle ground and
right there after and within the left.

There's a Right now left and one of our
own mentors used to say you have to have

a left wing and right wing to fly.

Thank

you.
I never turned down a chance to blather

and thank you Barbara lottery.