June 17 – Transportation Planning Division – Where We Want to Live

Ryan Gravel, author of the original thesis for the Atlanta Beltline, will discuss the topics of his new book, “Where We Want to Live – Reclaiming Infrastructure for a New Generation of Cities.” This fresh take on the future of cities investigates the cultural side of infrastructure, describing how a more thoughtful design for the construction of our lives can illuminate a brighter path forward. By invoking examples as wide-ranging as the small and elegant High Line in New York City to the revitalization of the vast and unruly Los Angeles River, Ryan will describe how people everywhere are already reclaiming obsolete infrastructure as renewed conduits of urban life. More than individual projects, he argues, they represent an emerging cultural momentum that allows us to forget tired old arguments about traffic, pollution, blight, and sprawl, and instead leverage those conditions as assets in the creation of something far more interesting than anything we’ve seen so far.