NEIGHBORHOOD PLANNING
Neighborhood planning in Atlanta involves a structured process that includes input from residents through various channels such as Neighborhood Planning Units (NPUs) and neighborhood associations. These organizations play a crucial role in facilitating community engagement, allowing residents to contribute to the planning and development decisions that affect their neighborhoods.
AT A GLANCE
Neighborhood Planning Units (NPUs) serve as citizen advisory councils that make recommendations to the city on planning and zoning issues.
Neighborhood associations often focus on specific community concerns and work to improve the quality of life in their areas.
Both NPUs and neighborhood associations encourage active community participation and ensure that residents have a voice in local government decisions.
The City of Atlanta is divided into 25 NPUs
Each contains at least two individual neighborhoods and has been assigned a letter of the alphabet from A to Z.*
*Except for U, because that would be confusing.
How does the NPU System work?
City officials provide information to and get feedback from the NPUs on public safety, public works, permits, parks, and other neighborhood planning matters.
Everyone over the age of 18 who lives in Atlanta’s city limits is a member of an NPU.
Property owners, business owners, and organizations can have a representative member, too.
NPUs typically meet once a month to conduct business.
Each NPU has its own bylaws so there’s no one-size-fits-all description.
NPUs help prepare the Comprehensive Development Plan dealing with the physical, social, and economic aspects of our city.
Who came up with NPUs?
RESIDENTS
In the early 1970s, community activists demanded a greater voice at city hall to save their neighborhoods.
STATE LEGISLATORS
In 1973, state legislators included requirements for citizen participation in the City of Atlanta’s new charter.
CITY LEADERS
In 1974, Mayor Maynard Jackson and the City Council created the NPUs to ensure residents would be heard.
THE NPU INITIATIVE IS AN INDEPENDENTLY-LED, MULTI-YEAR REVIEW OF THE CITY OF ATLANTA’S OFFICIAL SYSTEM FOR COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT — THE NEIGHBORHOOD PLANNING UNITS (NPU).
The NPU Initiative is an effort by the Center for Civic Innovation to improve community engagement in Atlanta. Our mission is to address issues of inequality in our city through solutions built from the ground up, and we believe that finding and supporting community solutions to community problems starts with making sure that everyone can be heard.
Atlanta’s Neighborhood Planning Units were conceived for exactly that purpose back in 1974, but how well are they working 45 years later? Together with a growing coalition of like-minded community groups across Atlanta, we’re taking a look at the state of the NPU system and thinking big about how it could be better: more accessible, more inclusive, and more representative of the communities they serve.