Downtown Sources

my_athens – an Instagram that details Athens’ events, culture, and idiosyncrasies

exploreathens – an Instagram focusing mostly on Athens’ student community

Downtown Athens – a twitter account dedicated to the downtown community

Visit Athens – a twitter about the larger Athens community

Athens-Clarke County – the twitter of the city government

Online Athens – twitter of online publication devoted to Athens events

Flagpole – twitter of local news publication

Spotted Athens – photos of the community

Georgia Theatre – details Athens’ music scene

40 Watt – more of Athens’ music scene

guide2Athens – focus on local business and culture

Old Stories

Published in 2007 in The Augusta Chronicle, “Parking Less Pricey in Downtown Athens” details a now-resolved dispute among Athens residents as to whether or not parking meter prices and fines should be raised, as they were some of the lowest among the Georgia cities surveyed. At the time, parking meters charged five cents per twelve minutes, and a ticket for an expired meter was $3, while parking beyond the time limit was a $5 ticket. While some residents and city officials wanted the ticket fines to remain that low, they have since been raised to $10 for an expired meter and $15 for parking beyond the time limit.

 

Third Try to Build On Downtown Lot,” published in 2009 in the Athens Banner-Herald, describes the debate among Athens business owners and city officials to decide if building a four story parking deck on East Broad Street would detract so much from the look and feel of historic downtown that it wouldn’t be worth it. However, members of the Athens-Clarke Heritage Foundations voiced their support for it.

Another parking deck, this one six stories, encountered greater resistance in late 2009, as reported by the Athens Banner-Herald in “Too Late for Say On New Deck.” Citizens felt that city commissioners fast-tracked the building of the parking deck without making sure local business and citizens approved of it. Many were afraid it would obscure and dwarf the Georgia Theatre and simply be a drab eyesore. The city commission was unwilling to change or slow down the process.

Brainstorming List

  • Are luxury housing complexes and high rises downtown pushing low-income residents to the outskirts of the city?
  • Create an interactive map showing what areas of Athens are gentrified (where gentrification is/has occurred) and when. I think this would be particularly interesting if I were to show neighborhoods in Athens and how they have changed over time. I would use StoryMap JS to do this. I would drop pins on different gentrifying areas and include photos (if obtained) of the area in the past and an original, current photo of the area today. I think it would also be very interesting to include audio from people living in or who previously lived in each neighborhood that tells the story of gentrification.
  • Interview longtime Athens residents to question how gentrification has changed the landscape of the city over the years.
    Profile a resident of Parkview Homes about their experience in Athens, particularly since building began downtown.
  • Interview businesses that have been downtown for decades (The Caledonia Lounge, the 40 Watt Club) about how they have managed to stay relevant and interesting in a constantly changing area.
  • Look at how gentrification downtown has changed what businesses are open in the area — do downtown shops change as the people living downtown change?
  • How is the local government working to offset the effects of gentrification in the community? Are they attempting to bring in lower-income or rent controlled housing? Is there some sort of program available to help displaced residents find new homes? If so, how did these start? 
  • Is it provable that gentrification is a factor that leads to homelessness in Athens or could something else be contributing to this? Compare homelessness over the years.
  • Has gentrification offered any benefits to the community — increased property values, reduced strain on local infrastructure, increased purchasing power in local businesses, etc?
  • Compare Athens neighborhoods today to Athens neighborhoods 20 years ago — are different people living in different areas, if so, why and when did this occur?
  • Everyone talks about housing when they think about gentrification, but I’d like to look at how it affects retail prices — what do rising prices mean for the accessibility of goods and services for Athenians? Nationally, we have seen that low-income communities have less access to grocery stores and healthy foods and that residents in these areas (called food deserts) are often obese due to a lack of healthy food. It might also be interesting to see how the public transit system in Athens makes Athens food deserts unique — because there are buses available, transportation into areas with healthy food options may not be as difficult as in other communities.
  • How does gentrification change the kinds of goods and services that local residents demand or, in other words, how does gentrification change cultural aspects of downtown? I think this could be particularly interesting because it speaks to what Athens is as a city and how it has gotten to where it is today. Are we a music town because we always have been or is that a result of gentrification?
  • How does gentrification change the cost of doing business — is this what makes lower-margin businesses more or less profitable? In this vein, how have business retention rates varied downtown as the city gentrified? Are tax incentives given to businesses that develop in gentrifying areas? It would be good to take a look at the city’s urban redevelopment plan and speak to members of the Downtown Development Authority about this, as well as local business owners.
  • How has gentrification affected minorities in the community?
  • Has gentrification changed the lives of women in Athens, particularly women in low-income households, for better or for worse?
  • How has gentrification changed the way the local government is planning to develop the city in terms of business and growth? (Urban Redevelopment Plan)
  • Does Athens have rent control regulations in place in any areas downtown? If so, what areas and how did that come to be?
  • Are there areas in Athens that have been rent controlled and are now being allowed to practice vacancy decontrol? This often happens in communities with a high rate of resident turnover and ultimately render rent control laws ineffective.
  • How have community groups developed since gentrification began in Athens? This is a community story, a profile of community groups like Athens for Everyone that have popped up in response to the continued gentrification in the city. This is particularly interesting because it shows the way different people of different classes try to effect change in their city and gives insight on what sorts of changes they would like to see occur. It would be interesting to tell the origin story of groups like this.
  • Has downtown art or murals changed in response to gentrification at all? This happens in many other gentrifying communities?

Brainstorming Ideas

20 Story Ideas

  1. Community Events

– Local shops sponsoring events around town to help themselves and each other

  1. Farmers Markets

– Exploration of the multiple farmers markets around Athens

  1. Coffee shop lifestyle

– What’s the fascination with local coffee shops? Why are they any better than Starbucks?

  1. Local, Local, Local

– Co-ops, farm to table, farmers markets, small businesses; a millennial trend that isn’t really a trend at all – the return to local-based economy

  1. Hipsters

– What does it mean to be hipster? Is there a definitive point at which you achieve ‘hipster status’ or is it what you make of it?

  1. Having it All

– The “having it all” lifestyle phenomenon—a woman is no longer permitted to just work or just be a stay at home mom, she has to try and have it all or is seen as lazy. What kind of lifestyle does this expectation entail?

  1. Trend Alerts

– How are trends established? Where is the black market of ideas from which trendy stores receive their insider info? How do they catch on in time to stay relevant?

  1. Big bad Outfitters

– How are small town boutiques surviving in the face of massively funded stores like Gap and Urban Outfitters sneaking into downtown turf?

  1. Thrift Stores

– The draw of trendy hipsters to thrift stores since Macklemore’s song came out

  1. Health Food

– How to maintain a trendy health food lifestyle on a college student’s budget

  1. Fun for Pennies

– How to find and attend the best events of the season on a college student’s budget

  1. Hip with the Youngsters

– The story of boomers and Gen-x-ers and how they stay adrift in a sea of ever changing tech and trends

  1. Grocery Underdogs

– EarthFare, Daily Co-op, and La-Z Shopper—how do they compete with stores like Kroger and Publix?

  1. Nesting in Athens

– How students establish a connection with Athens when they’re only here for 4 years (or a few more)—how they make Athens their home

  1. Music Scene

– Athens is known for its music scene, but how can fledgling musicians compete in such an intimidating music market? How do they get going? What is the process they go through to get a foothold?

  1. Grad Student among Children

– How is it being a grad student in a town full of undergraduates when every event is aimed at a younger crowd?

  1. Special Snowflake

– In a trendy town like Athens, only the fresh survive. How do the hippest places in town differentiate themselves to stay alive in a dog-eat-dog trend-focused town?

  1. The Plight of the GDI

– With the massive Greek population at UGA, it can sometimes feel difficult to feel apart of the action of the university and feel as if you’ve made a concrete group of friends—how do GDIs find a niche beyond the obvious Greek life?

  1. Technological Integration

– Apps, widgets, social media, and geocaching—how does evolving with technological innovation keep the Athens lifestyle fresh and moving forward?

  1. Bars vs. Pubs

– The advantages and disadvantages of pubs and bars—which style of social drinking atmosphere is better?


 

Profile Ideas:

  1. Hipsters– this is the perfect story for which to conduct a profile. In a hipster town like Athens, it wouldn’t take too much digging to find a hipster to profile– their personal style, what it means to them to be a hipster, etc. and apply it to the movement in general. Or better yet, find a sort of store that supplies fashion and trendy items to said hipsters and do a profile of the owner on what their motivations are and how they themselves contribute to the ‘hipster’ lifestyle.
  2. Community Events-– this would be another prime story to shape as a profile. The local boutiques for which Athens is known are constantly sponsoring and organizing events for the community. One example is the Cine Fashion Show from August. I could profile the coordinator for the event, Rachel Barnes of Dynamite. She is not only the event coordinator for Cine, but is also a manager at Dynamite Clothing. She would be the perfect person to do a profile on to cast a light on community events in Athens.

Trend Ideas:

  1. Thrift Stores — we all know of Macklemore’s wildly popular song ‘Thrift Shopping’ which called attention to a potentially massive new frontier for clothes shopping. After his song was released, though hipsters would argue that they always shopped at thrift stores, collecting the newly cool-again pieces from the 80s and 90s for dirt cheap prices at thrift shops became the coolest way of shopping for fashion. This is a cut and dry example of trends and simply talking to fashion merchandising majors and thrift store owners would provide adequate source material.
  2. Local, local, local— hip towns across the country are jumping aboard the buy local bandwagon and insisting that the best and only way to ensure merchandise and food products’ authenticity and quality is to locally source the products. Farmers’ Markets have always been founded on this principle, but in recent years, the backlash against big business has driven the masses to a new wave of cultivation. Small, local vendors are selling in bigger name stores, storefront family businesses are popping up everywhere, and even big name food corporations like Chipotle and Barberitos are being founded on the local farming principle. This is a perfect example of delving into a developing trend.

Pick’em Ideas:

  1. Behind the Scenes– Farmers Markets— it would be incredibly simple to go behind the scenes at a local farmers market in Athens. The Athens Farmers Market meets every Saturday in Bishops Park and is FULL of local vendors. I could get in contact with the lead coordinators of the market and find out not only how the market came to be but watch the day-to-day or hourly functioning of the market on Saturdays to explore the extent of the project and how it affects the community.
  2. Localizer– Big Bad Outfitters— a well known battle in our country is the fight between big and small business; the fight between capitalistic gain and local distinction. Small business Saturdays are a big movement in this fight between store types, for instance. To localize this issue, one needs to look no further than downtown Athens. Urban Outfitters has moved into a large commercial space downtown leaving controversy in its wake with townies and students decrying it for pushing out the ‘little guy’ boutiques and small businesses so ingrained in Athens’ downtown. An exploration into this smaller instance when compared to the larger issue in the nation would be an interesting perspective.

More Research

1. A Brief History of Denim Cutoffs
http://i-d.vice.com/en_us/article/a-brief-history-of-denim-cutoffs-from-daisy-duke-to-debbie-harry

2. Why Are So Many People Obsessed With Supreme?

http://www.vice.com/read/supreme-and-the-psychology-of-brand-devotion

3. Fashion and Culture Drive Chinese Tourists to Italy
https://global-factiva-com.proxy-remote.galib.uga.edu/redir/default.aspx?P=sa&an=CHNDHK0020160905ec950002d&cat=a&ep=ASE

4. The CFDA Calls For More Diversity At New York Fashion Week

http://www.harpersbazaar.co.uk/fashion/fashion-news/news/a37937/the-cfda-calls-for-more-diversity-at-new-york-fashion-week/

5. The relationship between Media Consumption and Eating Disorders in the Journal of Communication 1997
Media Consumption and Eating Disorders

5.

Brainstorming: Fashion & Lifestyle Story Ideas

1. I would like to profile the experiences of college females who work in the lucrative positions of promotional models in the beer industry.

2. An assignment discussing the impracticality of women’s clothing vs men’s clothing and why the former seems to suffer for aesthetic design in the way men’s doesn’t (possible titles include “WHY ARE WOMENS POCKETS MERELY AN ILLUSION I CAN’T EVEN CARRY CHAPSTICK WHILE WEARING JEANS BUT MY BOYFRIEND CAN FIT HIS NISSAN PICKUP, TABLE SAW AND OUR CAT ZELDA IN ONE OF HIS BACK POCKETS”)

3. Are sin taxes (those against cigarettes, tanning beds, etc) effective in curbing specifically college age consumer behavior?

4. A look at up-and-coming female film directors in the South. Possibly delve into their specific aesthetics, casting, style or how their experiences/barriers in the film industry may be different than males in their field (I’m also not sure if this is at all relevant to my beat, but after reading this: Vogue Elizabeth Wood’s Film White Girl Controversy possibly an article about the differences in critic responses to similar male and female films or male/female art in general when it comes to grants, music etc.)

5. A look at full-time UGA undergraduate students who are balancing an already blossoming professional career in art or business, for example, a student who is still enrolled full-time but recently started a business or clothing line or is selling crafts etc)

6. A behind-the-scenes look at trying to break into the fashion world as a model featuring new models around Georgia.

7. Looking at the monetary value of certain art degrees (in an admittedly more anecdotal way) by talking to photographers, graphic designers, and other artists who have gone to colleges like SCAD vs those who are professionally successful without a college degree.

8. An article about the paid nude (or “live”) models that work at the Lamar Dodd School of Art at UGA.

9. A look at the ethically murky trend on social media of advertisers paying for sponsored featured mentions or “testimonials” (many of those being paid by companies fall under the “Instagram-famous” or “Instagram model” category of someone who has a follower count in the thousands, hundred thousands or even millions but who would not be considered a celebrity in the conventional sense outside of the social media platform) that are not explicitly labeled as advertising but rather could be confused as unbiased testimonials to their followers, many of whom are underage.

10. An article about different trends in skin care with expert advice on what skin care mistakes/lifestyle choices different college kids are most likely to commit (i.e A Dermatologist’s Skin Care Guide For Smokers and Partiers)

Brainstorming: 10 story ideas

  1. Are luxury housing complexes and high rises downtown pushing low-income residents to the outskirts of the city?
  2. Create an interactive map showing what areas of Athens are gentrified (where gentrification is/has occurred) and when.
  3. Interview longtime Athens residents to question how gentrification has changed the landscape of the city over the years.
  4. Profile a resident of Parkview Homes about their experience in Athens, particularly since building began downtown.
  5. Interview businesses that have been downtown for decades (The Caledonia Lounge, the 40 Watt Club) about how they have managed to stay relevant and interesting in a constantly changing area.
  6. Look at how gentrification downtown has changed what businesses are open in the area — do downtown shops change as the people living downtown change?
  7. How is the local government working to offset the effects of gentrification in the community?
  8. Is it provable that gentrification is a factor that leads to homelessness in Athens or could something else be contributing to this? Compare homelessness over the years.
  9. Has gentrification offered any benefits to the community — increased property values, reduced strain on local infrastructure, increased purchasing power in local businesses, etc?
  10. Compare Athens neighborhoods today to Athens neighborhoods 20 years ago — are different people living in different areas, if so, why and when did this occur?

More Research

Hancock Community residents raise concerns about gentrification issues

This article expresses the concerns of residents in the Hancock Community who feel that gentrification is becoming a constant problem. They voice complaints about things related to the subject — the rising costs of rent pushing elderly residents from their homes, destroying historic community identities and higher rents being placed on buildings in the area, forcing them out.

‘Studentification’ of Athens to pause as mixed residential project moves in

This article is about a development project that would bring residential homes, a grocery store and a restaurant to downtown Athens. It lays parallel the effects of gentrification and the way the city is trying to combat it.

Athens rising: Luxury housing brings change to downtown

This article discusses the luxury housing options being built in downtown Athens and how those more high-rent options are forcing low-income residents further away from the downtown and university areas of Athens.

Students shape Athens housing market while poverty issues persist in the city

This article compares student life with the life of low-income Athenians, in light of Bolton Dining Commons being built so near to the Parkview Homes public housing community. It also delves deeper into what leads to poverty and some of the struggles that arise from a lack of resources.

Gentrification in a Brooklyn neighborhood forces residents to move on 

This article is not about Athens specifically, however, I feel that it relates directly to my beat because it is a great example of the type of article  that I would like to write. It tells the stories of displaced people, while also acknowledging and addressing the issues that led to their displacement. Written for The New York Times, this story about Crown Heights is very interesting and does a good job of showing how gentrification makes one feel.