Georgia Tech Alumnus Chosen To Envision The Future of Atlanta
Alumnus Ryan Gravel, the mind behind the Atlanta BeltLine, has been selected to lead Atlanta City Design Project.
Georgia Tech alumnus Ryan Gravel has been chosen to help shape Atlanta’s future. Mayor Kasim Reed chose Gravel to head up the Atlanta City Design Project, an undertaking aimed at envisioning what the city will look like in decades to come, as well as guide future decisions on the growth and development of the city.
“Pioneering a project that will shape all the future planning decisions and that promotes strategic development in Atlanta is my dream job,” Gravel said in a release from the City of Atlanta.
While a master’s student at Georgia Tech, Gravel had an idea to take railroad corridors that were grown over with weeds and unused and turn them into 22 miles of revitalized parks, transit and trails connecting Atlanta neighborhoods.
“It’s a community revitalization project, it’s an economic development project, it’s a public health project,” Gravel said of the BeltLine in an interview with Georgia Tech’s Alumni Magazine. “It does all of those things, so it brings in a lot of people wanting the same thing. It brings a lot of constituencies together.”
Gravel and the Atlanta City Design Project will begin meeting and planning this summer.