Tina Belge

THE STORY

Planning for Growth: Tina Belge on Housing, Streets, and the Rest of the City

"What if the rest of our city looked as well planned as downtown?"

That's the question Tina Belge keeps asking, and the one she's bringing to TEDxUnityPark 2026.

Tina doesn't just talk about how cities grow, she works on it from two sides. She's an AICP certified urban planner and the owner of Catalyst Community Consulting, where she helps local governments, nonprofits, and private partners advance housing affordability. She's also an at-large councilwoman for the City of Greenville. At this year's TEDxUnityPark, her talk "Designing a City Where Growth Works for Us" asks what most of us have wondered on the way home in traffic: if all these people are coming anyway, can we make it work for the people who are already here?

"Greenville can become the best-planned city in America by designing growth to work for us."

Tina is from here, and then some. "So I am third generation to live in the upstate," she said during TEDxUnityPark Media Day. She went to Georgia Southern, then UNC Chapel Hill, and she's a two-time AmeriCorps alum. And she doesn't hedge about what she likes.

"I love planning."

Her career runs through Greenville County, Keep Greenville County Beautiful, and the Greenville Housing Fund. "But I specialize in housing, particularly affordable housing," she says, "and how we can best bring that to our cities and counties across the Carolinas."

Now the growth is here. "Growth is coming to Greenville whether we plan for it or not," as she puts it. So Tina decided to plan for it.

"Greenville, we're experiencing a lot of growth, which is a great thing," she said at Media Day. "We want to be a growing city, not a dying city."

Most of the growth conversation around here is a complaint. Tina's is a to-do list, and she has written policy on housing, trees, and zoning reform to back it up.

"With that comes a lot of changes, a lot of pressures, and I think there's quite a lot of opportunity to turn that same pressure, you know, into something that can be beautiful, right? Like a diamond."

Greenville already knows how to do this. Downtown got years of planning and investment, and it shows. Think of it like a house where one room got the full renovation. Tina's asking about the rest of the house. That means affordable housing, transit, bikeability, safe sidewalks, and holding on to the trees and parks.

"When we design housing, mobility, and green space as one interconnected system, every home, every street, and every tree becomes part of a larger pattern that strengthens the whole city."

She's practical about how to pay for it, too. "And when we build smarter, we build more affordably," as she puts it, "with modular homes, missing-middle options, and ADUs that open doors for more families." And she doesn't forget Main Street. "We need a blend," she says of the bigger names moving in. "But we also don't want to lose our mom and pops."

She founded the Young Voter Coalition and sits on the board of the SC Women's Affordable Housing Network. But talk to her for five minutes and she sounds like a neighbor who happens to know how zoning works.

TEDxUnityPark's 2026 theme is Multiply, and Tina tied her talk to it before we ever asked. She went straight to the park our event is named for. "We have an area that used to be home to a women's jail, a shooting range, chemical spills, environmental issues," she said.

"Unity Park, having the TEDx name on Unity Park, I think is pretty unifying and symbolic because the conversations we're having today are about growth, are about multiplying, right?"

We'd put it this way: Greenville doesn't need help multiplying. It's already doing that. What Tina wants is for the right things to multiply with it, and for the people who live here now to get a say.

"...make sure that people are a part of that conversation because if we don't value history, you know, we're going to repeat it."

What many don't know about Tina is that she's a TED fan first. "I'll never forget seeing my first TED Talk," she said. She was also named one of the Best and Brightest Under 35, a title she was quick to put an expiration date on at Media Day: "although 35 this year now." She volunteers with Meals on Wheels and the Summit Drive PTA, and yes, the at-large councilwoman also serves on her own HOA board. Tina lives in Greenville with her husband, Jacob, their daughters, Sammy and Robin, and their dog, Lily.

She's hoping this talk travels. "I hope it reaches a lot of cities that could use some good planning, some best practices," she says, "and those residents who want to get involved and want to see and shape their city to be better."

We can't wait for you to hear this one. Tina's talk is a plan for a city that grows and still has room for the people who built it.

"I hope you'll come to my TED Talk and others this November to learn about how Greenville is growing and what we can do to manage that growth in a way that works for us."