For over a generation my family has owned a small retail commerial center along 13th Street in Columbus, Georgia. Having owned something that long, we have photos of the buildings over the years as tenants came and went. Subtle changes were made to the buildings and the signage adjusted, but the neighborhood feel remained.

Sometime in the late 1970’s, the roadway was expanded from two lanes with on-street parking to four. At the time, an increase in traffic counts was thought to add value. Further up the street, the roadway was ‘improved’ further; it became five lanes and was being fed from downtown with a new seven lane bridge over the working rail yard.

Yet, as time passed, rents went backwards, occupancy was shorter and parking and access to the buildings became a greater concern for tenants. We made significant improvements to the buildings – so much so that we purchased the shopping center on the other side of the road to have the space available to do similar improvements.

Fast forward ten years and the work by Strong Towns has begun to change the way we view our roadways, their costs, and the impact on adjacent properties. The need to #SlowtheCars has not changed, but the way a community communicates that need has been radically updated.

In Columbus, the need to redesign 13th Street came to the forefront when an alignment of efforts between a number of community groups occurred. We could quickly move the articulation of this need from political favor to necessary for equitable transportation, community building, and improvement in the productivity of a space. Beginning in 2014, community leaders attended the Doable Cities Conference hosted by the Knight Foundation and 8-80 Cities. The Knight Foundation along with Gehl Studio continued to be involved in our community, funding the creation of a minimum grid plan to better connect our core communities and helping us assess our public space.