April 11, 2007

Atlanta City Councilmember Kwanza Hall Takes Part in Prestigious International Fellowship Program

Atlanta City Councilmember Kwanza Hall was among 57 emerging American leaders who took part in the international Marshall Memorial Fellowship (MMF) Program for 2007. 

The leaders, representing 20 states and the District of Columbia, returned recently from a 23-day trip to Europe where they pondered the economic, political, and social issues facing the United States and its transatlantic allies.

Several key issues centered on the usage of public space, the importance of urban transit, human rights and urban design.
The goal of the Marshall Memorial Fellowship is to educate the next generation of American and European leaders on the importance of the transatlantic relationship and encourage them to work with each other on a range of international and domestic policy challenges. 

Hall said one problem Atlanta is facing today is its lack of real neighborhood density. The answer may well lie across the Atlantic.
 “Thanks to the fellowship experience, one question I will have for local developers is whether their projects will be dense enough to accommodate our rapidly growing population and preserve as much open space as possible,” he said. “We visited communities across Europe that have been successful in preserving large areas of shared outdoor space by increasing housing density around the city core and transit centers.

Hall and other fellows were selected to participate in the Marshall Memorial Fellowship Program through a competitive nationwide process. Fellows came from various sectors including government, media, business, and the non-profit organizations.