Decatur’s big on activity centers (nodes, in case you’d like to join me in geekland). All of our growth plans are rooted in them. Downtown. Oakhurst Village. East Decatur Station. These are the centralized, walkable places that serve (or will serve) as hubs for their surrounding neighborhoods.

However, another important component of city organization is corridors — which serve to connect activity centers — and Decatur’s got a good one: The CSX railroad tracks, from East Lake Marta to the Ice House.

The reason I bring it up is because, while we were all focused on other things, this corridor started gelling into, uhhhh, something. Something good. Some pieces that have been around a while, some new, some to come. Consider this:

PATH
A significant (albeit “private”) linear park
Infrastructure for peds, bikes, runners, cars, trucks, transit and trains
Wahoo!
Ink & Dagger
Lawrence’s Cafe
Ale Yeah!
Revolution Doughnuts
Avellino’s Pizza
The Imperial
Corrina’s Corner
Yoga Central
Candler Park Market
Thinking Man Tavern
Core Fitness
Atlanta’s United Tae Kwon Do
The arts collective businesses around Church / Howard / McDonough
  – Decatur School of Ballet
  – Various music instruction services
  – Color Wheel
Agnes Scott College
Harbour Bar
Twain’s
Trinity Triangle
DQ
Trackside Tavern
Kimball House
Las Brasas
MAR
Some groovy office rehab of the tire store
Fellini’s
Whatever’s going in the Ice House
Some salons and other things I’ve probably missed

Dang! That’s a healthy dose of groovy, and yet this area has no name (that I know of). Which identifies a void that, as I see it, is our responsibility to fill.

The obvious contender seems to be something like “The Rail District” but that might rankle the folks in Avondale, who’ve put a lot of effort into their “Rail Arts District.” So what do you think?

Better name a district!