Saturday was Youth Day in Roswell – one of those days that reminds us all how wonderful this place is.  I joked that with the parade, Farm Days, festivals, barbecues, football parties … there were probably a whole lot of naps and early bedtimes in this city.

The Youth Day Parade is also the only time when nobody minds being stuck in traffic on Canton Street, because the traffic is throwing candy.  Perhaps that’s a solution to our transportation woes – just throw Tootsie Rolls when you’re at a standstill on Holcomb Bridge or Highway 9.

I rode in a pickup truck with my soccer team in the parade 30 years ago.  This year, the pickup trucks were full of a new round of kids – a couple of them mine! – who represent the next step for Roswell.

We are looking at Roswell’s next step.  Who do we want to be, and what do we want to look like?  What is your vision for Roswell?  My vision is a city center with green space, local retail and restaurants, and a variety of thoughtfully-considered residential options.  Our run-down strip centers are replaced with creative and vibrant redevelopment that captures Roswell’s essence.  We have hubs for art and music and options for entertainment and gathering.

For too long, metro Atlanta, including Roswell, succumbed to the philosophy of what Southern historian Van Woodward called the “Bulldozer Revolution:” mowing down and paving over every square inch of land, which led to a loss of identity and a lack of connection.  Today, innovative planners are returning to notions of community, linking to nature, and connectedness.  Roswell must seize on these opportunities.

It is important to be strategic about how these opportunities are applied, and to make sure development and redevelopment is consistent with our identity and contributes to – rather than degrades – our quality of life.  What do we need, and how are we going to get it?  What are our challenges right now, today?  How can we overcome them?

The UDC, as written – it should be noted that it’s changing by the day – doesn’t embrace a strategy for development and redevelopment.  It doesn’t target our problem areas.  It creates new zoning categories that welcome development – but is it the kind of development we want, and where?  Who decides?  What incentive does a developer have to create a special and unique project on one of our problem spots when it’s easier to make more money by developing on empty land?

These are dangerous and important questions that need to be answered so that Roswell’s next step is the right one.  We must take a conservative and thoughtful approach to our growth, remembering who we are and what our challenges are.  Remembering the kids on the parade floats and in the pickup trucks – the next step creates a Roswell for them, their parents and grandparents, their future children.  For all of us.