As part of our ongoing series, we’re asking readers for their ideas on how to make our great city even greater. So far, we’ve received ideas about security, community gathering spaces, the need for more grocery stores — even creating water features throughout downtown and teaching Atlanta drivers how to safely merge into traffic. Each week, we’ll share some of those ideas. As we wrote last Sunday, we’re all in this together.
Ways Atlanta can build community downtown
Downtown should have more community areas, such as large areas to enjoy a conversation, and green areas where you can sit and have lunch, with trash cans. And it should have a centralized street with shops and restaurants closed off to cars after 6 p.m. on weekdays and weekends from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. so that people can walk freely or bike. It should also have more bike lanes on every street, and more food carts, as in New York, with breakfast in the morning and lunch in the afternoons.
Atlanta needs easy hop-on mini electric buses at no or nominal or charge; pop-up concerts or entertainment on Thursdays, Fridays, or weekends, using local talent; cheap water vending machines; and restrooms for elderly people and people with disabilities that are separate from public restrooms.
Let’s keep entertainment downtown affordable for everyone, not just the wealthy or middle class. We need more art shows of local talent, and undercover police and cameras for security.
BEVERLY GREEN-SANFORD, DOUGLASVILLE
