Who Are You, Alpharetta?

In recent months, local politicians have been eager to give this city an identity by creating a "vibrant downtown city center".   In fact, they are so eager to create this vibrant identity that once they got our go ahead vote on the City Center Master Plan, they decided our input was not, well, appropriate.  There is a new, new City Center design and the RFP calls for "appropriate input and input that is in line with the city's goals."  Hmmm.  Uhhh, whose goals?  The citizens collectively define this city and what we are to be. 

And just who are we in all our many-faceted, glorious wonderfulness?  

We're mostly long gone agricultural land that sold to developers like Mobil Land Development, who in turn smartly developed the beautiful Windward neighborhood. We're North Point Mall, Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre, and incredibly beautiful, hidden, park-like corporate campuses where thousands of white collar workers have jobs.  We are coveted retail/hotel space and the tens of thousands of workers who don't live here but work these jobs.  

We're retirees. We're old timers who are wondering who will ask them about the fascinating history they long to tell us.  We are new-timers from Chicago and San Francisco and Baltimore and every place in between.  We are foreign-born timers who come here to work with local corporations –  from start-ups to Fortune 500's - and who are all gracious and wonderful and want to be a part of life here.  

We are smart people and our kids carry far more than the smart gene; they bear expectations from us that they continue being smart – and so they are.   Alpharetta is baseball and horse riding and parents who lug kids to practice and adults who love competition and play sports themselves. 

We all live and/or work in this great place.  But, is there anything, some symbol that defines Alpharetta?  The great Lancscape Architect, John Ormsbee Simonds, who wrote the book that every student of Landscape Architecture has to read, once said that a superior community – one with community identity – would necessarily be oriented to a symbol that gives it focus and meaning.  What is our symbol? 

Well, you all know what it is.  Every neighborhood in Alpharetta is thick with it.  From a satellite view Windward has so much of it that you can barely see the houses.  North Point Parkway is lined with it.  Corporate campuses in Alpharetta are hidden by it and distinguished by it.  Parks are full of it.  And no matter what you might think of local ordinances that protect them, you’d rather see them than not see them.  

Alpharettans love their trees.  Alpharetta is distinguished by trees.  Not beaches.  Not mountains.  Not lakes.  Not rivers.  No lush tropical paradise.  Trees.  Lots of them. 

Trees you will remember.  You will never cherish your memory of parking at city hall to get a permit.  You will never cherish your memory of getting 20% off at the retail establishment that Council is anxious to place at the new, new City Center.  But you will remember the trees in your yard, at school, at work, and where you first saw that great blue heron perched.  You will remember it.  

At the new, new City Center, and whatever other location our City Council decides to "develop", they will throw a few stick trees from nurseries into the ground, forget to water them and tell you how much they care about trees.  But they will chop down the 50 and 80 and 100 foot tall trees that didn't cost you or me a dime.  

This is what all developers do.....