We live in a small neighborhood off of Mt. Vernon. It’s a pretty typical Dunwoody neighborhood, built in the early 70’s. It’s a combination of ranches, split levels and the archetypical ‘Dunwoody 5, 4 and a door’.
Over the last 2 or 3 years we’ve had 5 houses sell in our small neighborhood, some from the original owners. Each of those houses now has new owners who are the typical young Dunwoody homeowners. Three of the families have small kids; two of those have another on the way. One of the other couples has their first child on the way while the remaining couple is still in their newlywed phase, no pressure, yet.
It’s been great for us. Ian and Nate have a few new friends and future classmates. In fact, every time we hear of a new neighbor any place close to us we always hope for two types of people moving in, either young kids or new babysitters. You can never have enough of either.
These new neighbors have all chosen to live in Dunwoody for the same reasons a lot of the families who moved here in 60’s, 70’s 80’s and 90’s. It was a great place to raise kids then and it is now as well.
My family bought a house in Kingsley in 1975 when we moved here from NY. My dad is from Macon so it was a bit of a homecoming for us. After all the kids were gone mom stayed in the house until around a year after the tornadoes. They were too close to home for her. I moved back to Dunwoody when Amanda and I got married so we could raise our children here.
When we first moved here in 1975 Dunwoody was not a suburb, to many it was ‘the sticks’. Dad had a friend from HS who lived around Chastain Park in one the modest ranches in a neighborhood just off Powers Ferry. To dad’s buddy we were way too far out to consider Dunwoody an Atlanta suburb.
I’m not playing the “More Dunwoody Than You” card here, not at all. Just laying a little ground work for my understanding of what Dunwoody was then, is now and some of the stuff in between.
So there we were this past Tuesday night at the Dunwoody Sustainability Candidate Forum when one of the candidates said something that made a lot of people say “Huh?” But there were also a few of his supporters who actually clapped and cheered. Double “Huh?”
A question was asked of the panel that related to ways of getting Dunwoody citizens to drive less and find others ways to get around town. Walking was one of the options that had been suggested.
The candidate said that Dunwoody was a suburb and people tend to drive in suburbs. “We choose to live in Dunwoody and that is the way it is. If you don’t like that, if you want to make some changes, you probably need to move because this is the suburbs.”
Wow. At first I felt bad for him for saying something like that off the top of his head. Then I felt bad for some his supporters that I know who definitely do not feel that way. But lastly I felt bad for his supporters who were there who actually clapped for a response like that. Then I realized that it was not something off the top of his head. That was a prepared remark, waiting to be stated.
With that candidate’s way of reasoning, we would never have become a city. After all, when we moved here it wasn’t a city, if you want to live in a city move to a city. We didn’t have Brook Run Park, if you want a park, move to a city with a park. Not a very well thought out position for the candidate.
I also have to wonder who is he pandering to with a remark like that? Who would support a candidate who neither understands nor cares about trends in transportation that have been very successful for our neighboring cities? Neighboring cities that we compete with on a daily basis. Trends that are absolutely necessary for any kind of Economic Development for our city. Who could support a candidate who makes such a casual remark that tells our citizens to accept things the way they are today or just move!
Think of all of the recent additions to your own neighborhood. Are they young families like our new neighbors? If so you’ll know that young families expect different things than families did in the past. Just as the young families who moved here in the 80’s expected different things than the ones from the 60’s, as did the new people in the 90’s did from the 70’s.
We need people in office who understand that. We need people in office who will continue to help Dunwoody to grow and change by ensuring that we have the type of city that can attract the new families we need to keep Dunwoody alive and vibrant. If not, our property values will drop and Dunwoody will decline. We won’t have to worry about crowded schools, parks or the traffic that is associated with any of those.
Another thing that comes to mind is do we want a ‘leader’ who is so hurtful and dismissive to our citizens who have positive ideas for our city? We want everyone to be a part of helping our city move forward. Perhaps if this candidate had spent some of his own time on committees or panels in the last 3 years since we’ve become a city he would get to know some of these dedicated people and understand what is in our currents plans and why our citizens worked so hard to put their ideas into formal documents and plans for our leaders to use to keep us moving forward. It would not be so easy to dismiss these good ideas from dedicated people as opposed to some who choose to sit on the sidelines and just complain.
I am reminded of the old saying: if you are not moving ahead, you are falling behind. When I look back I see DeKalb County. When I look ahead I see the City of Dunwoody, a city whose best days have yet to be seen. That is, as long as we choose the right leadership who can get us there.
