Few Words About Memorial Drive

Enforce 
Enhance 
Empower 
Endure

Four simple words, if followed, could turn Stone Mountain Village to an area to what it once was.

Enforce 

Enforce existing ordinances and laws that improve everyone quality of life: traffic enforcement, loitering, littering, and public nuisances. 

Enforcing simple, existing laws will bring cash into the system and increase the quality of life for everyone.

Enforcing laws coupled with citizen action like, parking in the direction of traffic, taking down illegal signs, and cleaning up your own property will start to help and create social norms that improve the community.

Enhance 

Review existing conditions and evaluate what could be done to improve the area. 
Example: Memorial Drive and West Mountain.

Two things that could begin to help this area are simple: bury power lines and infill concrete medians with green landscaping.

Physical appearance says a lot about a place and can attract new businesses and residents. Numerous power lines show unplanned growth and lack of confidence in the sustainability of the area.

Concrete medians say we do not want to invest the time to maintain green spaces, even if it means sacrificing the aesthetic appeal of the area. More green spaces in the area could draw visitors to Stone Mountain into the local community to become patrons and improve the economy.

Empower 

Empower people to volunteer. Push the idea of One DeKalb from a government run idea - to a public held action with community ownership. 

Promote Keep DeKalb Beautiful. Support more citizens and groups to adopt a stretch of road, clean up the curbs, pick of the trash and work together as a community to make Stone Mountain Beautiful.

Promote communications like the Patch to inform and teach residents. 

Empower a diverse set of business to move to the area with tax credits. This will expand our selection beyond pawn shops and beauty shops.

Endure 

Quick urban sprawl followed by recession created our current situation. This is a time to come together and rise again. Endure, but this time with precise planning and calculated growth, with incentives for a diverse set of businesses, housing options, public transit and walkable communities. Let’s not just continue with the norm. 

Let’s create healthy sustainable communities that attract residence and make Stone Mountain a great place to visit, a great place to shop, eat and most of all a great place to live.

The recommendations listed above are brief, we know that just fixing up an area will not solve the problem, but it is a great start. It can increase resident pride in the area, and potentially be a driver for future businesses. Resident pride can have an exponential effect on the development of the community.

Enforce 
Enhance 
Empower 
Endure

Take Pride DeKalb!