Wes McRae | November 17, 2023 – Atlanta, GA

For the 2023 World Town Planning Day celebration at the School of City and Regional Planning, three leaders of Atlanta's Department of City Planning gave students an in-depth look at the practice of planning in the City of Atlanta.

"One of our annual traditions at the School is to celebrate World Town Planning Day," said Gulsah Akar, chair of the School. "This is mainly a student-driven event where the students nominate individuals to come and talk with us as our guest lecturers and then we as a school facilitate the conversation."

This year's guests were Jahnee Prince, Commissioner of City Planning; Keyetta M. Holmes, Director of the Office of Zoning & Development; and Doug Young, Director of the Office of Design and graduate of the School's Master of City Planning program.

"Our elected officials bring to us what the citizens of our community want, and we also go out and ask [the community] in the process. Our job is to make that stuff happen," Prince said. "Everybody wants to live in a safe, beautiful, economically vibrant community."

"The question is, how do you get that in a way that is defendable and sustainable in a project management way," asked Doug Young.

"I think that's the really the biggest challenge we have, because there's no real debate to Jahnee's point about what we want. How do we make that happen in an administrative framework?"

Holmes said the administrative framework is paramount. "Nobody understands that the ordinance is law, but it's the law of the city, the absolute law," Holmes said. "I spend a lot of time with all of our residents, educating them on what the laws of the city are, how to interpret them, and then how to apply them when applications come before them, so they can get the communities that they want."

"As a veteran in this area, I can say this was a terrific presentation of planning's on-the-ground reality," said Mike Dobbins, professor of the practice in the School and former City Commissioner for Atlanta when they hosted the Olympic Games in 1996.

"World Town Planning Day provides us with unique opportunity to reflect on the past, the present, and the future of urban development and sustainability" said Claire Breeden, president of the Student Planning Association.

"This year's theme is 'Learn Globally, Applied Locally' and it focuses on the value of learning from planning and planning cultures across the world, fostering innovative, sustainable, and equitable solutions to address the global challenges that we're all facing."

"We're all here to celebrate and acknowledge the critical role that planning plays in shaping the future of our communities, and the cities that we live in," Breeden said.