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 Suzanne Donovan, communications director for Step Up Savannah, a local not-for-profit organization bringing together business, community and goverment leaders to address poverty in our area. Read on for Suzanne’s insights on how Savannah is stepping up to the plate …

I hate ribbon cuttings. But the recent ceremonial opening of Savannah Gardens, our newest housing development on the east side of the city, made me want to stand up and cheer. Years of work by a multi-layered partnership among nonprofit developers, the City, banks, even the feds, produced a spanking-new $100 million neighborhood that will have 550 housing units when it’s finished in about four years.

But guess what: It’s not enough.

Savannah desperately needs more safe, decent housing that’s affordably priced. While we’re known for our important historic architecture, our housing costs are rising faster than inflation and way faster than wage growth. We’re one of Georgia’s most expensive places to live when you stack up our wages and costs of rent, mortgage, and utilities. The upshot? Our low-income working families are getting priced out.

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 guest blogger is Ariel Janzen, founder and owner of brightwhitespace, a creative services, graphic design and branding company based in Savannah.   Read on to see what this exceptionally talented creative genius thinks about our wired ways….

I remember well the classic Nokia ringtone of my first digital, hand-held cell phone in the 1990s. I was working as a graphic designer in Toronto at the time, and it seemed that every businessperson in the city answered to the same tune — a default setting of the phone.

Back then, the sounds were new and exotic to me — like bird-calls in an urban jungle, and occasionally I confused the ring for some natural sound startlingly out of place in a conference room or bistro.

Years later, while peacefully on vacation and hiking through the woods in rural Canada, I would repeatedly mistake an actual, lovely distant bird call for the ring of my own cellular phone, and tear through my backpack until I verified I was way out of range. It amazed me how conditioned my response was – and how out of touch I was with the natural sounds of the world.

 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 guest blogger is Brynn Grant, Vice President of Competitive Positioning at Savannah Economic Development Authority (SEDA).  A conversation with Brynn always leaves one thinking bigger and further outside the sandbox.

It’s widely known that Savannah has been a center for commerce since its founding in 1733. By the late 1700s, it was considered one of the most important cities in the world for international business and trade. Today, Savannah is a location for several global companies, the world headquarters for Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation and the North American headquarters for JCB, particularly. It is home to the 4th largest port in the U.S., 42nd in the world, and recognized internationally as a destination for tourism.

How are we maximizing these assets for the greatest possible economic benefits? Who’s doing what? Is there a collaborative, comprehensive and proactive plan for our city, our county, or the region as a whole? If not, should there be? And then, what kind of structure, plan or approach will have the highest value and greatest possible return? As part of the competitive positioning directed by our 5-Year Strategic Plan, SEDA is asking these questions.

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 guest blogger is Jim Reed, a long-time fixture in Savannah’s music, art and all-things-hip community. Jim is a freelance journalist who blogs at wickedmessenger.com,  a music promoter, and the man behind the curtain at the Psychotronic Film Society of Savannah.

“The way we look at the world is the way we really are. See it from a fair garden, everything looks cheerful. Climb to a higher mountain and you see plunder and murder. Truth and beauty are in the eye of the beholder.”
~ Bob Dylan, 2002

“Backseat drivers don’t know the feel of the wheel, but they sure do know how to make a fuss.”
 ~ Bob Dylan, 1980

I’ve made my home in Savannah for the past quarter century — moving here initially to attend college (without ever setting foot in the place, no less) and staying because of the creative energy of the wonderful friends and collaborators I found in this hodgepodge lodge of inspiration and regret, of dynamism and repose.