Plans are moving forward for Atlanta's broad Beltline project, including parkspace, mixed use development and transit. But this piece from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution argues that a grand vision is needed to harness the momentum.
"To become a successful reality, however, the Beltline needs a vision."
"The vision is the glue that makes a project -- the product of a thousand decisions -- cohere. It encompasses the broad gestures, such as land use, street connections, affordable housing plans. It informs the architecture, such as stations and parks. And it is expressed in the details -- benches, streetlights, pavers. It is what will make the Beltline more than a public transit route."
"As history suggests, the Beltline also needs a champion for that vision."
"'If you look back at the transforming infrastructure improvements of great cities like Paris and New York, projects that have made them the places that we know and love, we see that there are common elements,' says David Green, an architect/planner with Lord, Aeck & Sargent who developed the Beltline street framework plan for the city."
"Among them are 'a clear vision of what the project is and a master who understands the impact of that vision and how it can be executed,' he says."
FULL STORY: CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK: A path in search of a vision
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