The Creative Coast’s blogspot is Savannah’s sounding board for local thinkers, innovators, wanderers and wonderers. Guest bloggers share their thoughts, opinions and creative noodling from all over the map. This week’s blog is from DaVena Jordan, Queen Bee and Executive Director of AWOL (All Walks of Life), one of the most successful youth outreach programs in the region.  Read on to learn about the gold DaVena and her husband Tony are mining right in our own backyards…..

Artwork by Lloyd “KidSyc” Harold

The most famous quote of the California Gold Rush was uttered by a local news publisher, Samuel Brannan, who ran through the streets of San Francisco shouting, “Gold! Gold! from the American River.”

So now that I have your attention, the truth is, there is no actual gold in the Savannah River, but there is something just as precious and very similar to gold lurking around every corner of our community. Gold is represented on the periodic table by the symbol Au and the atomic number 79. It is a dense, soft, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a beautiful shiny yellow luster that has been considered attractive for thousands of years. So, by now you’re wondering just where I’m going with this and more important, where is this likewise precious item in Savannah?

The Creative Coast’s blogspot is Savannah’s sounding board for local thinkers, innovators, wanderers and wonderers. Guest bloggers share their thoughts, opinions and creative noodling from all over the map. This week’s blog is from Kayne Lanahan, CEO and founder of Savannah Stopover Music Festival.  Read on for Kayne’s notes on what it takes to create a mushrooming music scene…..

Photo by Matthew McCully

Just last week the manager of one of Savannah’s Broughton Street retail stores professed a profound desire to get involved in this year’s Savannah Stopover Music Festival because she was willing to do anything to help improve the “crappy” music scene in this town.

I hear this sentiment expressed over and over again in Savannah, primarily from the 18-34 year old demographic. Two years ago I would have stood there shaking my head and nodding “yes, yes, I hear you, I agree” but now I find myself asking the harder questions: What constitutes a “Music Scene” in a city? What if my scene is different than your scene? What if there is a “scene” and we just don’t do a very good job of promoting it across Savannah’s many microcosms of youth?

The Creative Coast’s blogspot is Savannah’s sounding board for local thinkers, innovators, wanderers and wonderers. Guest bloggers share their thoughts, opinions and creative noodling from all over the map. This week’s blog is from Drew Wade,  a radiologist, avid bicyclist and proponent of all things which make Savannah a better place to live.  Pedal along with Drew as he lays out a roadmap to cooler, hipper, healthier community…. 

The Savanasphere has been swirling with talk of what might become of the old Backus Cadillac dealership at the corner of Victory Drive and Truman Parkway. Most of the comments are centered around the likelihood (and I believe for many reasons they are right) that Whole Foods is redeveloping the site for one of their stores. While I think many of us will find some solace in that arrival, relieving our inferiority complexes about Charleston, will a one-stop big box carrying a greater variety of organic and otherwise expensive groceries really change Savannah?

The Creative Coast’s blogspot is Savannah’s sounding board for local thinkers, innovators, wanderers and wonderers. Guest bloggers share their thoughts, opinions and creative noodling from all over the map. This week’s blog is from Sean Brandon, director of Mobility & Parking Services for the City of Savannah. Read on to find out how Sean thinks “creative growth” advocates can bolster their positioning….

In the discussion about “creative cities” and the policies that may create them, I’ve been struck by the arguments that have often been made that it is an elitist concept that doesn’t particularly benefit anyone except a relatively few people who can afford the comforts that come with being a “creative city”. I’d like to offer a small analogy that I hope will create more discussion.

I’m sure you have, at various points, seen someone biking through a busy street that seems was never meant for a bicycle, usually a four to six lane road where the actual speed is fifteen miles above the posted speed limit. As you struggle to keep pace with your fellow drivers you look over and see a person bicycling either in the travel lane or more likely on the narrow shoulder. “What is that crazy person doing?” is a somewhat natural response for most people. As it turns out, many bicyclists are either in poverty or close to it. Poverty doesn’t give you the comfort of finding a job within walking distance, and in many cases, even a robust mass transit system can often leave gaps for people trying to get to jobs that are at non-business hours.