Mayor since 2021, Kelly led Chattanooga in becoming North America’s first National Park City in 2025 and a global destination. He calls his hometown “a city inside a park.”
Tell us about growing up in Chattanooga and favorite hikes with your family.
Growing up here, I really took our beautiful outdoor assets for granted. I had never lived anywhere else, and you can’t ask a fish about water! It wasn’t until I was in college in New York that I appreciated just how special growing up here was. I did a lot of canoeing and fishing with my father on lakes and rivers in the area and spent lots of time in the woods with friends. My favorite hike as a kid was Falling Water Creek. We would do what they now call bouldering — hopping around and climbing the rocks. In later life, I came to appreciate the trails on Lookout Mountain with my own boys, particularly Bluff Trail.
You now lead North America’s first National Park City. How did the conversation start?
Our former parks and outdoors director, Scott Martin, first made me aware of the concept. As soon as I heard and understood it, I was sold. I thought — you’re already describing Chattanooga! It is a perfect fit. It’s about thinking of your city as being in a park, rather than a city with some parks in it. This is a powerful concept when you sit with it a while, to really change the way residents think of their relationship with nature and with each other through shared natural assets: our land and water.
What defining principles have you discovered about Chattanooga since competing for this designation?
The concept really has less to do with natural assets and more to do with the culture of people in the city itself and how they relate to nature. What I learned about Chattanoogans is that most of them have an almost innate, reflexive appreciation of our natural world and connect with each other very easily through it. Many new residents consciously and specifically choose Chattanooga for its natural assets and welcoming culture, and are very aware of what makes our city so special.
Have you connected with the only two other mayors whose cities have achieved National Park City status?
I have connected with the deputy mayor of London and various council members in London, and we hit it off immediately. When you understand what this designation can do for your residents, it’s something you quickly bond over. I am looking forward to meeting our Australian counterparts!
Chattanooga’s achievement as a global destination is an amazing story. Tell us about the transformation since the 1970s.
It is a story of reinvention. We were at a dead end in the late ‘70s, a dirty industrial city that had run its course and needed to chart a new path forward. We had the worst economic growth rate over previous decades of any city within 500 miles of us. We had turned our backs on the Tennessee River as a source of inspiration and recreation.
As a child, I rode across Market Street Bridge thousands of times, looking down at the river, but never set foot on its banks until much later, when we embarked on a plan to embrace our natural assets as a driver for our culture and economy. This led to creation of our Riverwalk, the Tennessee Aquarium and preservation of Walnut Street Bridge as a pedestrian bridge.
We take things for granted today as essential elements of Chattanooga, but it took vision and hard work from the city leadership at the time — public, private and philanthropic — to make it happen. As for the future, we continue evolving into the best version of ourselves, which has always been about living in a city in a park!
The story above first appeared in our July / August 2025 issue.
