Why We Explore
Take-aways from the past 7 years
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Oh Atlanta, oh Atlanta!
I said yeah! yeah! yeah! Atlanta, got to get back to you
“Oh Atlanta” from Feats Don't Fail Me Now by Little Feat (1974)
My Last Public Tour
Today is the 7th anniversary of my first public walking tour in Atlanta. Just want to take a moment to thank everyone who has biked, walked and or rode with me throughout the city during this time. I have had the pleasure of meeting thousands of people from all over the world on my tours. It has been privilege and an honor to meet all of you.
I created a special webpage for those who are interested in knowing more about Atlanta, rich and interesting history and, especially, this very interesting part of Atlanta. I will be recording a video soon that will go into a lot more details about the maps and photos on that page.
What's Next?
In case you are interested, my next and final project will be to create an ecosystem of interactive maps to help people explore ATL on their own in the future. These will be based on what I have learned about the city during the past seven years. This webpage will give you an idea of what to expect.
Why we explore...
The absence of a historically preserved battlefield means that visitors seeking firsthand knowledge about the places and events that figured prominently in the Battle of Atlanta must go beyond the almost effortless engagement with history available at well-preserved Civil War sites, such as Kennesaw Mountain, Gettysburg, and Vicksburg. Visits to the Atlanta battlefield, even via virtual tour, require greater self-reliance and a more active process of combining historical accounts, maps, and images with present-day visual evidence to ferret out what happened, where, and why. The rewards are great. By juxtaposing information from then and now, visitors traveling through contemporary Atlanta gain a new and powerful perspective on the city, its neighborhoods, and their place in history. Exploring seemingly ordinary sites is a way to gain a new awareness of history, even if the sites are often encountered during our everyday routines. Landscape historian John R. Stilgoe encourages us to scrutinize those places, put them in spatial context, and arrange them in time. "Enjoy the best kept secret around," Stilgoe writes, "the ordinary everyday landscape that rewards any explorer, that touches any explorer with magic."
— Daniel A. Pollock, The Battle of Atlanta: History and Remembrance (2014)
Production vs. Consumption
As the Industrial Age gave way to the Information Age (and later the Knowledge Age) the economic engine of the "Beltline neighborhoods" experienced a massive transformation. When the trains were running, these buildings housed manufacturing plants and employed blue collar workers who made things. Those things were shipped out on the trains that ran along the tracks that used to be here.
Today, these same buildings house food halls, technology companies, consulting firms and investment management organizations. These service businesses employ knowledge workers and creators; everything from chefs to web developers. Their goods and services are consumed on premises (food and beverage) or remotely by their clients (solutions).
Today's Beltline is a gathering place. It is a destination where people come to eat, drink, exercise and meet one another. It is also a lifestyle that people want to live and work near. Today's employers choose to open offices here because having access to this lifestyle is viewed as a strategic asset, a recruiting tool.
It's worth noting that the neighborhoods and properties along the Beltline experienced a long period (30-40 years) of dormancy after the production-driven economy ended and before the consumption-driven economy really took hold.
What will the Beltline and its coveted neighborhoods be like 5-10 years from now? 25-50 years from now? We do know one thing: The world we live in is very different than the one our parents, grandparents and great grandparents lived in. The world that our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren live in will be very different than the one we live in now.
Here's an easy example that illustrates the point. Think about Atlantic Station. Before that massive mix use development was there that property was the home to Atlantic Steel which was a massive heavy industrial company. Think about the production capacity of that steel mill, total annual sales, and the combined incomes of all of the workers who work there.
Now, think about all of the buildings and businesses that sit on that same property today. Think of the total revenues of all those businesses and the rents and lease payments paid by all the businesses and people that live and work in those buildings. Think about the tax revenue generated by all that development. It would be really interesting to see the numbers but the total value capacity of that property is likely hundreds of times greater than it was when the steel mill was there.
The other thing that occurs to me when it comes to the production versus consumption concept is that the capacity of today's service businesses, in many cases, is far greater than the capacity of the production companies that were here before them. And, by capacity, I'm talking about revenue-generating capacity, the capacity to create value for business owners and employees and their investors. Also, the earning potential of people in today's service businesses is greater than the blue collar workers who worked in these same buildings before them. This just means that the value of this land and of these properties is far greater today than it was in the past and has the potential of increasing even more ( much more) than it has already. This is a virtuous cycle of sorts.