(press.work.) In “One of Atlanta’s largest remaining forests has been saved. Now what?” Josh Green covers the latest news on the City’s acquisition of Lake Charlotte, a 220-acre forest in southeast Atlanta. It’s the first piece of a much larger puzzle that I’ve been working on with The Nature Conservancy called the South River Forest. See also: Atlanta City Design.

Excerpt > “Gravel calls the Lake Charlotte purchase integral for a much grander concept he’s working on with the Nature Conservancy: the South River Forest, a potential 3,500-acre linkage of existing nearby parks and forests, plus historic sites like the city’s old prison farm. “It’s metro Atlanta’s last chance to have a forest this big—bigger than Stone Mountain [Park]—inside I-285,” says Gravel. …[Shirley] Nichols, the longtime neighbor, says most homeowners are happily retired and less concerned with increasing property values than having a gorgeous, city-maintained amenity down the road—something they never considered possible. “We just want a neighborhood that’s friendly and clean and nice,” she says, “and that draws people that want to come and partake in all the beauty we have over here.” > More