Lauren’s Priorities.

Lauren’s starter list, with more to come! Every part of Knoxville should be a place where people can live, work, and play. Here’s where Lauren will focus as mayor.

Put the Public Back in Public Decisions

Neighbors and local businesses should help shape plans from the start, not find out after decisions are made.

  • Create community stakeholder committees across the city, modeled on the Broadway Corridor Task Force Lauren helped start.
  • Bring residents and business owners to the same table, collaborating with city staff.
  • Public updates early and often about city improvements and areas of focus.

A Home or Shelter Within Reach

Housing and shelter for everyone is a must. A focus on helping more people own a home, so all generations can build equity here.

  • Create and support more paths to homeownership.
  • Build on the zoning updates and missing middle housing Lauren helped pass.
  • Encourage and support mixed-use development along Knoxville’s corridors.
  • Look at smaller-scale options like pocket neighborhoods and tiny homes.
  • Pursue smaller-scale housing solutions for people experiencing homelessness, because tent camping is not the answer.
  • Bring back low-barrier shelter, so people can get help where they are.
  • Build on the work to end veteran homelessness by setting the same goal for women and children.

Connect Knoxville

Getting around should be easier, whether you walk, bike, ride the bus, or drive downtown for work.

  • Keep connecting Knoxville’s greenways, linking neighborhoods to each other, to jobs, and to downtown.
  • Make parks more central to community life.
  • Support transportation solutions, including microtransit and sheltered bus stops.
  • Work to keep buses free for high school and college students.
  • Keep improving downtown parking, including free and reduced options and the downtown employee parking program.

Neighborhoods That Thrive

Neighborhoods and local businesses need each other. It shouldn’t take a trip downtown to find a good place to eat, shop, or gather.

  • Bring vacant and underused property back to life, especially along our corridors.
  • Support local businesses and community events in every part of town, building on the special event permit changes Lauren helped pass.
  • Let each neighborhood help define its own character, instead of having it decided at the city level.
  • Preserve neighborhoods and find creative new uses for historic buildings, without pricing people out.

Help Lauren get it done.

Join the Team