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Health & Fitness

Lakeside City is Not Necessarily a "City of Lakeside"

What's the difference between "Lakeside City" and a city by the name of Lakeside? One is a conceptual project that will yield many organizational benefits, the other is a taxing jurisdiction.

I missed the Lakeside City Alliance fundraiser at Napoleons last night. I’ll be donating though for the same reason I asked people to donate to the Northlake Community Alliance--the promised of an affiliated community. There’s an expression that goes something like, “shoot for the moon because if you miss you’ll still be among the stars.”

I look at forming a city in the Briar-Tucker Patch as metaphorically shooting for the moon. It’s a specific mission that yields all sorts of related benefits, even if you don’t get there (read: even if more people don’t think it appropriate than do). Even if NASA hadn’t reached the moon, we’d still have microwave ovens to choose a droll example. What would then be the figurative equivalent of landing among the stars here?

LCA has rapidly accomplished a lot: media exposure, outreach, research, organization and influence in high places seemingly without yet increasing its organizational capacity. It’s hard to imagine how much activity will ensue (and notoriety and branding and…) when this group hits its stride. Note LCA has driven four other legislative proposals out of the woodwork, extending city-making along the I-85/Lavista/US 29 Corridor by an added three miles from Emory on one end to beyond Tucker Main Street on another. Quite a phenomenon from simply picking out a jurisdiction and naming it, portending exciting things for common ground, politics and economic development within the next 10 years.

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It’s easy to fall into the pro-LCA and con-LCA debate as being solely a matter of whether or not this vaguely defined area will even have a referendum. However, that’s not all that’s there. If we considered the LCA effort less about reaching a destination and more conceptually trying out an idea, could a new paradigm start taking shape?  For instance, I look at “Lakeside City” more like the title of a story, than a city that might be named Lakeside. Even though the discussion-evaluation MIGHT yield a new taxing jurisdiction, what we’d have in the meantime would fit more in the ethos of a promotion and community involvement. What if instead of focusing on a city-yes or no result, we measured signs of social progress: that have been CAUSED by the “Lakeside City Project”? How much public interaction is being generated with people and in places that have never been or seen engagement? What of the social and civic organizations that are being identified and hopefully inventoried as LCA marches?

Best yet—LCA might be viewed as an “idea” that includes a forum for debate and imagination. We see this happening on Facebook pages, news websites and blogs. Note that most blogs normally serve as “echo chambers” in agreement with the purveyor of the blog. Facebook pages can slant that way also. Not so with the aforementioned outlets for LCA and city-making issues. I don’t think it will be long before education, research, branding projects will germinate as well as existing organizations like the Civic Association Network (CAN) take on new influence. This would especially be helpful if it clarified the relationship between communities from Emory-North to Tucker.

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In 2002, I started what was called “Northlake Business Forum”. It was an inexpensive monthly congregation of commercial property owners, residents with ideas for a new quality of life and government officials directed at leveraging their “day jobs” into an outside-the-box mission  (the initiative ran its course after 18 sessions mainly due to my short attention span). Relevant to a “Lakeside City” project, most of the Northlake forum’s topics bore on elements that would be found in centers of small cities. So of course I’m delighted that we have talk of a Northlake community. By the way, some of the folks that are working on Lakeside City lent their support on some of the Northlake initiatives, mostly because they wouldn't leave me hanging.

Obviously LCA’s prime directive is precisely what earlier Northlake “gathering” initiatives lacked to attract mass energy—a city is a finite target with what appears on its face to have a working legal process to get there. It’s a good thing, however expedient its goals and legislative process. However I still see the full value in the effort’s intermediate steps, making up for all of the organizational work that never got done in the last thirteen.

This unique “first suburb” is exceptional and I’m confident that the journey the people of this are now on, given LCA’s jumpstart will reflect that.  What are the symptoms that the area is exceptional? (1) From sub-Emory, North Decatur and Druid Hills out to Tucker, my informal polls show more children of original suburban residents now raising third-generations in the place of their birth; (2) Core employment being overwhelmingly academic, medical and scientific provides an emphasis on schools and education.(3) More federal employees work here than anywhere in the southeast and until now have been able to afford to live nearby—property values and social stability being among the benefits; (4) the emphasis on government (including law and lawyers) makes us prone to activism and public engagement—“to mix things up”. (5) Key mass media employees have elected living here for 50 years—and all news is arguably good news.

Before we establish a “we’re not just any city” mantra, I think we’ll have one like “we didn’t just do anything to form our city”.

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