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WHAT'S UP IN NEW DEVELOPMENT
I recently trotted out my copy of Athens,
GA: Inside/Out for a friend who was uniniti
ated into the finer points of Athens music
history (Look—Michael Stipe... had hair!).
There was one quote packed in there that
really caught my ear, though, and I think it
really sets up the ethic that has defined the
community's sense of place for the last 30
years or so.
Michael Lachowski of Pylon, in explaining
his band's approach to music, said "...Our
biggest priority when we got into the band is
that we were gonna be making more art, and
it was just gonna be using instruments." Could
Athens' eclectic sense of place be rooted in a
similar mindset?
Jim Herbert talked about how "People are
not thinking about taking it to New York...
but the sense of the practice of doing it—
but the dignity of the making and the fun of
the making." Suppose that it's the sense of
craft—of process inherent in making art—that
is integral to our sense of place. We could
view this form of placemaking and community
building as an environmental art, with
boards and bricks and sheet metal rather than
instruments or oil paints.
R.E.M. certainly deserves credit for the
effect its members have had in the Prince
Avenue area, preserving a number of land
marks, like the building that houses Daily
Co-op, among many others. Their unique
preservation ethic and aesthetic has had a
dramatic effect on the community, even if
they've shied away from structures that they
were more directly associated with, like the
Murmur Trestle.
Then, there are the art studios in old
warehouses around town and farther out, com
munities like the Chase Street Warehouses that
are defined more by the varied aesthetics of
studio occupants, expressed in their restora
tion of individual components of the complex.
There's also that back-to-the-land aftershock
that has sent a steady steam of artists and
musicians out into the countryside, most
fully realized in projects like the Orange Twin
Conservation tommunity.
Perhaps the root of our troubles is that our
approaches to planning stem from this ethic.
It's not so much that we aren't planners, but
that we've got the minds of craftsmen, and
the big picture will only emerge from engage
ment in the process. The idea of a downtown
master plan is a perpetual "wouldn't it be
nice," but no one in the position to do any
thing about it seems intent on doing anything
about it. The prevailing position seems to be
that, as handy as that would be, the only way
to get it done would be to hand it over to
someone from out of town, and pay money we
don't have.
Perhaps if we turn back to that sense of
craft, of manually shaping our environment,
we might find a way forward. Rather than
viewing something like a master plan as an
out-of-town job for which we must pay hun
dreds of thousands of dollars, if we overcame
Could the ethic underlying artists' studios (like these in a warehouse off Barrow Street) and other creative envi
ronments inspire community-driven and enacted planning and visioning? [photo: Kevan Williams]
our own unwillingness to put pen to paper, we
might find we have all the necessary ideas and
skills here already.
There's been a lot more looking at the
University of Georgia as an asset as we've
been grappling with the River District. Are
there other assets there that could be
employed in a cost-saving manner, like the
College of Environment and Design or the
Fanning Institute? A volunteer-driven effort,
coordinated by a combination of municipal
and university resources, could be a much
more affordable way to generate a usable plan.
The only other issue is how to give these
ideas, once generated, a living, breathing
relevance in our community, rather than put
ting them on a shelf. Some Athens Economic
Development Foundation board members
recently dusted off a forgotten economic
development plan from May 1999 (The EDF
was created in 2002). The landscape hasn't
changed that much since then, and the recom
mendations sound similar to ones made today
in newer documents like the recent Janus
Report, a study funded by Georgia Power. That
economic development plan was forgotten
without an organization to shepherd it, and
any downtown master plan or similar docu
ment will also require guidance and owner
ship. ACC Commissioner Mike Hamby has been
pushing the idea of an urban design commis
sion recently; perhaps overseeing an ongoing
community-driven planning process could
be part of the responsibilities of such a body.
We already know that there are strengths and
talents here; it's just a matter of taking a
familiar way of working and applying it to a
new challenge.
Kevan Williams alhensrising@flagpole.com
AUGUST 24
Kip Jones & Jay Ring
AUGUST 31
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2020 Timothy Rd.
Athens, GA 30606
706.549.7700
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AUGUST 24, 2011-FLAGPOLE.COM 7
KEVAN WILLIAMS
