{"id":616,"date":"2011-01-13T11:31:39","date_gmt":"2011-01-13T17:31:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/mybirmingham\/?p=616"},"modified":"2011-01-13T11:31:39","modified_gmt":"2011-01-13T17:31:39","slug":"next-big-thing-bham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/dearbham\/2011\/01\/13\/next-big-thing-bham\/","title":{"rendered":"Still dreaming Birmingham? Time to do."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Birmingham<\/a>It is something that has become a mantra for me in these early days of 2011.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s time to stop just thinking and do.\u201d<\/p>\n

The simple sentence echoes around in my head \u2013 a space that has felt quite cavernous until recently due to setting goals for the future.<\/p>\n

This evening I’ll join more than 500 people over at Old Car Heaven<\/a> starting at 4:30 p.m. as\u00a0The Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham<\/a> announces the NEXT BIG THING<\/strong> for The Magic City (by the way,\u00a0you’re invited<\/a> so come out if you can).<\/p>\n

There have been great things going on throughout the region in the months since Rebecca Ryan delivered a memorable keynote at the Community Foundation’s annual meeting. I shared this post on the organization’s Imagine blog<\/a> the day of the speech.<\/p>\n

A lot has happened. True, there’s been the success of\u00a0Railroad Park<\/a> and the\u00a0Birmingham Business Alliance<\/a>‘s unveiling of their\u00a0Blueprint Birmingham<\/a> strategic plan has led to many important conversations to be restarted.<\/p>\n

It’s important to remind folks of some others things happening that may be just under the radar screen so to speak…<\/p>\n

There are mounds of dirt moving on the city’s west side as work continues on a revamped centerpiece of the city’s Five Points West community, one that has felt long neglected despite being one of the city’s most populous regions.<\/p>\n

There are families benefiting from\u00a0the development of residential options in Woodlawn<\/a> and buzz for\u00a0a new downtown field of dreams to house our beloved Barons.<\/a><\/p>\n

There are residents in communities like Norwood who are willing to lift their voices so that people know what they want<\/a> and have no reason to assume while looking forward to the ability of having\u00a0an entertainment district within walking distance<\/a> in the next two years.<\/p>\n

There’s a connection to\u00a0a road that brings Birmingham ever closer to Memphis<\/a> (and the western edge of Jefferson County) that teases those driving along I-65 every day watching its progress.<\/p>\n

Tonight we gather to see if what the Community Foundation will announce as their next great project. If nothing else, attending this evening’s event will be an opportunity to celebrate all that has been accomplished, both big and small, and to answer the call represented by former UAB president Volker’s quote,<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would do Birmingham a great disservice if we dreamed too-little dreams.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Whatever it is, it will be part of a larger dialogue that needs to take place in Birmingham about where we’re going. The big difference is that instead of dwelling on what isn’t happening, we’ll be wondering what else should be happening.<\/p>\n

There are several projects I think are worthy of being undertaken \u2013 whether it’s making sure that the Powell School building is preserved and maintained for a civic purpose or figuring out a way to expand and ensure the continued presence of the Birmingham Public Library. While I doubt that these are among the ones considered for today’s announcement, perhaps after the dust settles, people will see that much more is possible than they’ve ever imagined. They may just step up and get it done.<\/p>\n

I know that as the incoming president of the Birmingham Jaycees, that organization will be doing their part to take on part of the challenge of doing.<\/p>\n

How about you Birmingham?<\/p>\n

It’s more than a year later \u2013 how big are the dreams you’re dreaming for Birmingham (and what are you willing to do to make them a reality)? What are you willing to do to help shape the city’s story.<\/p>\n

Andr\u00e9 Natta is the stationmaster for bhamterminal.com.<\/p>\n

Photo:<\/strong> Birmingham 360 degrees<\/em>. E. Bruchac<\/a>\/Flickr<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"<\/a>

The future of Birmingham is a blank canvas, with many people dreaming big dreams for it. Terminal stationmaster Andre Natta asks if people are ready to move from dreaming to doing in advance of tonight’s Community Foundation event. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[55,394,96,395,103,124,247,340,361],"class_list":["post-616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","tag-announcement","tag-birmingham","tag-citywide","tag-commentary","tag-community-foundation-of-greater-birmingham","tag-do","tag-old-car-heaven","tag-the-big-thing","tag-volker"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p50I8-9W","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/dearbham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/dearbham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/dearbham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/dearbham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/dearbham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/dearbham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/dearbham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/dearbham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/dearbham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}