Sustainability & Connection
Chandra was born and raised in the town of Gallatin, TN, about 30 miles outside of Nashville. She first arrived in Atlanta in 1999 to finish up her college degree. Since then, she’s lived in several intown neighborhoods and currently resides in Midtown near Piedmont Park. Despite Atlanta’s reputation for sprawl, Chandra has managed to create a lifestyle for herself that’s both convenient and contained. “Atlanta’s a big city, but it feels very small when you’re in your neighborhood,” she says. “That really speaks to me being from a small town. It still feels very familiar.” Since Chandra hasn’t owned a car in four years, keeping all facets of her life close by was important for her: “I live a mile from where I work. Between walking, Zipcar, Uber, and my bike, I can live, work, and play right in the area.”
As a program manager at Southface Energy Institute, Chandra helps the nonprofit organization carry out its mission to promote sustainable residential and commercial developments through a combination of education, research, advocacy, and technical assistance. Her work seems to be a natural extension of the values that were instilled in her during childhood. “Sustainability has always been in my life,” she explains. “My parents owned a restaurant/catering business. I grew up walking or riding my bike to work there. My great-grandparents had a garden, so in the summer we got vegetables from the garden and used them in the restaurant. Now that’s called farm-to-table. It wasn’t called that then; it’s just what you did. All of our food scraps went into a slop bucket to go to our cousin’s pig farm. I think this has always been how I’ve lived my life.”
Chandra views Atlanta’s upcoming bike share program as something that will allow people to live their lives in a more mindful way. “I think it going to slow people down a little bit,” she predicts. “When you’re in a car, you’re focused on where you’re going, trying to find the right street, did I go the right way. And when you’re on a bike, you’re just cruising. It’s not necessarily a trip with a destination and a time to get somewhere.”
“I think bike share speaks less to an alternative commute program and more as a way to make people feel connected to their city and surroundings.”
With sustainability always on her mind, Chandra believes that the bike share program brings the city another step closer toward achieving a reputation as a leader in that space on a global scale: “I think that Atlanta, with great support from the mayor and all the amazing groups in sustainability, is becoming — to quote the mayor–a top-tier city in sustainability. I think bike share is one of those things that puts you in a different grouping. Atlanta has long considered itself an international city, but we haven’t always performed as an international city. I think that a lot of the fringe things that we’re doing, like this program, hiring a Chief Bicycle Officer, and creating an Office of Sustainability, are setting us up to boldly claim that title. It’s true Southern hospitality.”
