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Atlanta is the capital and the most populous city of the state of Georgia, and the core city of the ninth most populous metropolitan area in the United States. It is the county seat of Fulton County, although portions of the city extend into DeKalb County and Clayton County. As of July 2006 the city of Atlanta has a population of 483,108 and a metropolitan population of 5,138,223. The July 2006 census estimate puts the combined statistical area (CSA) population at 5,478,667.
Atlanta is often considered a poster child for cities worldwide experiencing urban sprawl, economic development, and growth. Between 2000 and 2006, the Atlanta metropolitan area grew 20.5%, the highest percentage amongst the top-ten metro areas. The metro area has also had the most single-family housing starts for 13 consecutive years. Atlanta is sometimes referred to as "the capital of the New South," and has in recent years undergone a transition from a city of regional commerce to a city of international influence.
During the Civil Rights Movement, Atlanta stood apart from Southern cities that supported segregation, touting itself as the "city too busy to hate." The city's progressive civil rights record and existing population of African Americans, made it increasingly popular as a relocation destination for African Americans and the city's population became majority-black by 1972. African Americans soon became the dominant political force in the city; since 1974, all of the mayors of Atlanta have been African-American, as well as the majority of the city's fire chiefs, police chiefs, and other high-profile government officials. White flight occurred in the city in the 1970s and 1980s; the city's population dropped by more than 100,000 from 1970 to 1990. That trend has reversed itself, and with gentrification, the black majority has dropped from 69% in 1980 to 54% in 2005.
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Atlanta Culture
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Atlanta hosts a variety of museums on subjects ranging from history to fine arts, natural history, and beverages. Prominent among them are sites honoring Atlanta's participation in the civil rights movement. Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was born in the city, and his boyhood home on Auburn Avenue in the Sweet Auburn district is preserved as the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site. Meetings with other civil rights leaders, including Hosea Williams and Congressman John Lewis, often happened at Paschal's, a diner and motor inn which was a favorite for "colored" people, banned from "white" restaurants in an era of racial segregation and intolerance. King's final resting place is in the tomb at the center of the reflecting pool at the King Center.
Other history museums and attractions include the Atlanta History Center; the Atlanta Cyclorama and Civil War Museum (a huge painting and diorama in-the-round, with a rotating central audience platform, that depicts the Battle of Atlanta in the Civil War); the Carter Center and Presidential Library; historic house museum Rhodes Hall; and the Margaret Mitchell House and Museum.
The arts are represented by several theaters and museums, including the Fox Theatre. The Woodruff Arts Center is home to the Alliance Theatre, Atlanta Symphony, and High Museum of Art. The Atlanta Contemporary Art Center is the city's home for challenging contemporary art and education geared toward working artists and collectors of art. Museums geared specifically towards children include the Fernbank Science Center and Imagine It! Atlanta's Children's Museum. The High Museum of Art is the city's major fine/visual arts venue, with a significant permanent collection and an assortment of traveling exhibitions. The Atlanta Opera, which was founded in 1979 by members of two struggling local companies, is now one of the fastest growing opera companies in the nation and garners attention from audiences around the world.
Atlanta features the world's largest aquarium, the Georgia Aquarium, which officially opened to the public on November 23, 2005. The aquarium features over 100,000 specimens, including five whale sharks, in tanks holding approximately eight million gallons of water. Adjacent is the World of Coca-Cola which opened in May 2007, featuring the history of the world famous soft drink brand and its well-known advertising. Underground Atlanta, a historic shopping and entertainment complex is situated under the streets of downtown Atlanta. In addition Atlantic Station, a huge new urban renewal project on the northwestern edge of Midtown Atlanta, officially opened in October 2005. While not a museum per se, The Varsity is the main branch of the long-lived fast food chain, featured as the world's largest drive-in restaurant.
Piedmont Park hosts many of Atlanta's festivals and cultural events. In 1887, a group of prominent Atlantans purchased 189 acres (0.76 km²) of farmland to build a horse racing track, later developed into the site of the Cotton States International Exposition of 1895, made famous by W.E.B Dubois' "Fingers of the Hand" speech. In 1904, the city council purchased the land for US$98,000, and today it is the largest park in metro Atlanta, with more than 2.5 million visitors each year. The grounds were part of the Battle of Peachtree Creek – a Confederate division occupied the northern edge on July 20, 1864 as part of the outer defense line against Sherman's approach. Next to the park is the Atlanta Botanical Garden. Zoo Atlanta, with a panda exhibit, is in Grant Park.
Just east of the city, Stone Mountain is the largest piece of exposed granite in the world. On its face are giant carvings of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Stonewall Jackson. It is also the site of laser shows in the summer. A few miles west of Atlanta on I-20 is the Six Flags Over Georgia Theme Park, which opened near the city in 1967, and was the second theme park in the Six Flags chain.
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Atlanta Education
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Colleges and universities
Atlanta has more than 30 institutions of higher education, the most prominent of which include Georgia Tech, Georgia State University, and Oglethorpe University. The city is also the locale for members of the Atlanta University Center, a consortium of prestigious historically black colleges and universities. Its members include Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse College, Morehouse School of Medicine, Morris Brown College, and Spelman College. Adjoining the AUC schools, but independent from them, is the Interdenominational Theological Center, a collection of seminaries and theological schools from a variety of denominations. The Reformed Theological Seminary is another Atlanta school. The Savannah College of Art and Design opened a Midtown, Atlanta, campus in 2005 and shortly thereafter acquired the Atlanta College of Art. The John Marshall Law School is the city's only freestanding law school. The headquarters of the private institution American InterContinental University are in Atlanta, and two AIU campuses exist in the area—one in Buckhead and another in Dunwoody.
Institutions in the metropolitan area include Emory University in unincorporated DeKalb County, Agnes Scott College, in Decatur; Columbia Theological Seminary, also in Decatur; Clayton State University, in Morrow; DeVry University, in Decatur; Georgia Perimeter College, with campuses in Alpharetta, Clarkston, Conyers, Covington (scheduled to open in January 2007), Decatur, Dunwoody, and Lawrenceville; Gwinnett University Center (soon to be known as Georgia Gwinnett College, in Lawrenceville); Kennesaw State University, in Kennesaw; Mercer University, in Chamblee; Reinhardt College, in Waleska; Southern Polytechnic State University and Life University, in Marietta; and the University of West Georgia, in Carrollton.
Public schools
The public school system (Atlanta Public Schools) is run by the Atlanta Board of Education with superintendent Dr. Beverly L. Hall. The system has an active enrollment of 51,000 students, attending a total of 85 schools: 59 elementary schools (three of which operate on a year-round calendar), 16 middle schools, 10 high schools, and 7 charter schools.[73] The school system also supports two alternative schools for middle and/or high school students, two community schools, and an adult learning center. The school system also owns and operates radio station WABE-FM 90.1 (the National Public Radio affiliate) and PBS television station WPBA 30.
Private schools
Notable private schools in Atlanta include The Westminster Schools, Pace Academy, The Lovett School, The Paideia School, Greenfield Hebrew Academy, The Epstein School, Yeshiva Atlanta, The Galloway School (Chastain Park), and Atlanta International School.
Notable private schools near Atlanta include St. Francis in Roswell and Alpharetta, Marist School (Dunwoody in unincorporated DeKalb County), Wesleyan School, Greater Atlanta Christian School, St. Pius X Catholic High School (Chamblee), Holy Innocents' Episcopal School (Sandy Springs), the Weber School (Sandy Springs), The Walker School in Marietta, and Woodward Academy (College Park).
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Atlanta Employment
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Despite romantic associations in the public mind from Gone with the Wind and other pop cultural touchstones, Atlanta has always been more a commercial city than a reflection of the region's antebellum past. It is the major center of commerce in the South, and boasts an especially strong convention and trade-show business.
One of seven American cities classified as Gamma world cities, Atlanta ranks third in the number of Fortune 500 companies headquartered within city boundaries, behind New York City and Houston. Several major national and international companies are headquartered in Atlanta or its nearby suburbs, including four Fortune 100 companies: The Coca-Cola Company, Home Depot, and United Parcel Service in adjacent Sandy Springs. The headquarters of AT&T Mobility (formerly Cingular Wireless), the largest mobile phone service provider in the United States, can be found a short distance inside the Perimeter beside Georgia State Route 400. Newell Rubbermaid is one of the most recent companies to relocate to the metro area; in October 2006, it announced plans to move its headquarters to Sandy Springs. Other headquarters for some major companies in Atlanta and around the metro area include Arby's, Chick-Fil-A, Earthlink, Equifax, Georgia-Pacific, Oxford Industries, Southern Company, SunTrust Banks, and Waffle House. Over 75% of the Fortune 1000 companies have a presence in the Atlanta area, and the region hosts offices of about 1,250 multinational corporations.
Delta Air Lines is the city's largest employer and the metro area's third largest. Delta operates the world's largest airline hub at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and, together with the hub of competing carrier AirTran Airways, has helped make Hartsfield-Jackson the world's busiest airport, both in terms of passenger traffic and aircraft operations. The airport, since its construction in the 1950s, has served as a key engine of Atlanta's economic growth.
Much of the wealth created by local companies' growth has found itself reinvested in the region through philanthropy. Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus contributed more than $200 million dollars to build the new Georgia Aquarium near Centennial Olympic Park. Fellow Home Depot co-founder Arthur Blank purchased the Atlanta Falcons in 2002, and has pledged $35 million for construction of the new Santiago Calatrava-designed Atlanta Symphony Center in Midtown. The late Coca-Cola executive Robert W. Woodruff established an Atlanta-based charitable foundation worth nearly $2 billion, and made a grant to Emory University in 1979 that at the time was the largest single contribution to a university endowment in American history. Roberto Goizueta also made substantial contributions to Emory University before his death; the business school there now bears his name.
While liberal banking laws in North Carolina permitted Charlotte to grow into the South's largest financial center, Atlanta still has a sizable financial sector. SunTrust Banks, the ninth-largest bank by asset holdings in the United States, has its home office on Peachtree Street in downtown.[citation needed] The Federal Reserve System has a district headquarters in Atlanta; the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, which oversees much of the deep South, relocated from downtown to midtown in 2001. Wachovia announced plans in August 2006 to place its new credit-card division in Atlanta, and city, state and civic leaders harbor long-term hopes of having the city serve as the home of the secretariat of a future Free Trade Area of the Americas.
The auto manufacturing sector in metropolitan Atlanta has suffered setbacks recently, including the planned closure of the General Motors Doraville Assembly plant in 2008, and the shutdown of Ford Motor Company's Atlanta Assembly plant in Hapeville in 2006. Together the closures mean the loss of 6,000 to 8,000 jobs in the Atlanta region. Kia, however, has broken ground on a new assembly plant near West Point, Georgia.
The city is a major cable television programming center. Ted Turner began the Turner Broadcasting System media empire in Atlanta, where he bought a UHF station that eventually became WTBS. Turner established the headquarters of the Cable News Network at CNN Center, adjacent today to Centennial Olympic Park. As his company grew, its other channels – the Cartoon Network (see also Adult Swim) and companion channel Boomerang, TNT, Turner South, CNN International, CNN en Español, CNN Headline News, and CNN Airport Network – centered their operations in Atlanta as well. (Turner South has since been sold.) The Weather Channel, owned by Landmark Communications, has its offices in the nearby suburb of Marietta.
Cox Enterprises – a privately held company controlled by billionaire siblings Barbara Cox Anthony and Anne Cox Chambers – has substantial media holdings in and beyond Atlanta. Its Cox Communications division is the nation's third-largest cable television service provider;[citation needed] the company also publishes over a dozen daily newspapers in the United States, including The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. WSB – the flagship station of Cox Radio – was the first AM radio station in the South; its call letters stand for "Welcome South, Brother."
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Atlanta History
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The region where Atlanta and its suburbs were built was originally Creek and Cherokee Native American territory. In 1813, the Creeks, who had been recruited by the British to assist them in the War of 1812, attacked and burned Fort Mims in southwestern Alabama. The conflict broadened and became known as the Creek War. In response, the United States built a string of forts along the Ocmulgee and Chattahoochee Rivers, including Fort Daniel on top of Hog Mountain in present-day Norcross, Georgia, and Fort Gilmer. Fort Gilmer was situated next to an important Indian site called "Peachtree Standing", named after a large tree which is believed to have been a pine tree (the name referred to the pitch or sap that flowed from it). The word "pitch" was misunderstood for "peach", thus the site's name. The site traditionally marked a Native American meeting place at the boundary between Creek and Cherokee lands, at the point where Peachtree Creek flows into the Chattahoochee. The fort was soon renamed Fort Peachtree.
A map showing roads and Indian trails circa 1815, with late 19th century Fulton County and City of Atlanta outlines overlaid. Peachtree Trail is the dominant cross-shaped figure in the top half, intersecting at the site of Buck's Head Tavern. The branch north, called "Peachtree Road", would become Roswell Road. The left branch (today the site of West Paces Ferry Road -> Moore's Mill Road) ends at Peachtree Standing and Fort Peachtree (at the left end of the horizontal arm), on the Chattahoochee River. Modern-day Peachtree Road follows the south and northeast branches.
The Creek land in the eastern part of the metro area (including Decatur) was opened to white settlement in 1823. In 1835, leaders of the Cherokee nation ceded their land to the government in exchange for land out west under the Treaty of New Echota, an act that eventually led to the Trail of Tears.
In 1836 the Georgia General Assembly voted to build the Western and Atlantic Railroad to provide a trade route to the Midwest. The initial route was to run from Chattanooga to a spot called simply "Terminus", located somewhere east of the Chattahoochee River, which would eventually be linked to the Georgia Railroad from Augusta and the Macon and Western, which ran from Macon to Savannah.
According to the Georgia Secretary of State, an experienced army engineer, Colonel Stephen Harriman Long, was chosen to recommend the location of the terminus. He surveyed various possible routes, then drove a stake near Five Points in modern Atlanta. Although the “zero milepost” marker has been moved repeatedly, its current location in Underground Atlanta is very close to Long's original choice.
A number of sites were proposed or actually designated as the Terminus, and the history is not completely clear. In 1837, work began to build it near Hog Mountain in present-day Norcross, where Fort Daniel was located, but the site was soon abandoned because there were too many creeks, valleys, and steep gradients. It was moved to Montgomery's Ferry near Fort Peachtree, for a savings of $18,000 per mile. Some historians claim that Decatur, a town founded in 1823 to the east of current Atlanta, was proposed as the Terminus, but declined due to worries about noise and crime.
Several months later in 1837, the legislature finally established the zero-mile marker for the Terminus at a point near the present-day Georgia World Congress Center, because the area was relatively flat and would better allow for turnarounds.(The zero-mile marker was later moved a short distance east, and today sits underneath Five Points, which was built on iron pilings above the railroad.) The first store, a general store, was opened at the site in 1839 by John Thrasher and a Mr. Johnson.
The area around Atlanta, later to become a part of the city, also began to be developed. A well-marked Indian trail, known as the Peachtree Trail, had long run from the area of present-day Suwanee, Georgia to the site of Standing Peachtree. To the south, in the present-day Campbelltown Road area, the Owl Rock Methodist Church was founded in 1828 by Richmond Barge and other members of the Mutual Rights faction. In 1838, Henry Irby started a tavern and grocery on a spur of the road, and the paths leading to his establishment became Paces Ferry Road and Roswell Road. Two years later the head of a buck was mounted on a pole in front of the tavern, and the region came to be called Buck's Head and then Buckhead.
By 1842, the settlement at the Terminus had six buildings and 30 residents. When a two-story depot building was built, the residents asked that the settlement be named "Lumpkin", after Wilson Lumpkin, the Governor of Georgia. He asked them to name it after his daughter, instead, and Terminus became Marthasville. Just three years later, the Chief Engineer of the Georgia Railroad, (J. Edgar Thomson) suggested that it be renamed to "Atlantica-Pacifica", which was quickly shortened to "Atlanta". The residents approved—apparently unabashed by the fact that not a single train had yet visited—and the town was eventually incorporated as "Atlanta" in 1847.
The first Georgia Railroad freight and passenger trains arrived in 1845. In 1846, a third railroad,the Macon & Western, completed tracks to Terminus, connecting the little settlement with Macon and Savannah. The town then began to boom. In 1847, two hotels were built and two newspapers were published. The population exploded to 2,500 citizens. In 1848, the first mayor was elected, the first homicide occurred and the first jail was built. A new city council approved the building of wooden sidewalks, banned business on Sundays, and appointed a town marshal.
By 1854-55 another railroad had connected Atlanta to Chattanooga. The town had grown to 6,000 residents and had a bank, a daily newspaper, a factory to build freight cars, a new brick depot, property taxes, a gasworks, gas streetlights, a theater, a medical college, and juvenile delinquency.
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Atlanta News
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Search for "Atlanta GA" - Premier Exhibitions to Present At Merriman Curhan Ford's Investor Summit 2008 - PrimeNewswire
| Premier Exhibitions, Inc. today announced that Bud Ingalls, the Company's Chief Financial Officer, plans to present at Merriman Curhan Ford's 5th annual Investor Summit at 3:00 p.m. PDT on Tuesday, September ... |
- Michigan man shot by ATL panhandler - MLive.com
| Kashman Avery, 48, of Michigan, was in Atlanta, GA, when a panhandler approached and asked for money. |
- Bookmark 'Hundreds Rally to Support Federal Tax Credit' to del.icio.us - Atlanta Real Estate Forum.com
| Real estate, new home builders, developers, communities and market trends blog in Atlanta, GA :: Atlanta Real Estate Forum Featured post: If you ever want to get a look inside the model home of a new community, ... |
- Obama, McCain fail to qualify for Texas ballot - Third Party Watch
| The following is a media release from the Barr presidential campaign: www.BobBarr2008.com Interview Contact: Andrew Davis Email: Andrewdavis@bobbarr2008.com Phone: 731-0002 Atlanta, GA - The Bob Barr ... |
- Brickstream Corporation announces OEM Partnership with Human Recognition Systems Ltd. - Techwhack
| ' 05th September 2008 - ' BRICKSTREAM CORPORATION - a leader in intelligent Video Analytics, announces a strategic OEM Reseller Partnership with Human Recognition Systems Ltd. |
- Good Works: Blue Sneaker Club helps community, has a blast - Atlanta Journal-Constitution
| Making fleece blankets for women in crisis has made fast friends of the sneaker-clad volunteers in the Village at Deaton Creek. |
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Atlanta Transportation
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Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (IATA: ATL, ICAO: KATL), the world's busiest airport as measured by passenger traffic and by aircraft traffic, provides air service between Atlanta and many national and international destinations. Situated 10 miles (16 km) south of downtown, the airport covers most of the land inside a wedge formed by Interstates 75, 85, and 285. The MARTA rail system has a station within the airport terminal, and provides direct service to Downtown, Midtown, Buckhead, and Sandy Springs. The major general aviation airports near the city proper are DeKalb-Peachtree Airport (IATA: PDK, ICAO: KPDK) and Brown Field (IATA: FTY, ICAO: KFTY). See List of airports in the Atlanta area for a more complete listing.
With a comprehensive network of freeways that radiate out from the city, Atlantans rely on their cars as the dominant mode of transportation in the region – a fact that leads some to call the city "the Los Angeles of the South." Atlanta is mostly encircled by Interstate 285, a beltway locally known as "the Perimeter" which has come to mark the boundary between the interior of the region and its surrounding suburbs. Terms such as ITP (Inside The Perimeter) and OTP (Outside The Perimeter) have arisen to describe area neighborhoods, residents, and businesses. The Perimeter plays a social and geographical role in Atlanta similar to that of the Capital Beltway around Washington, D.C.
Three major interstate highways converge in Atlanta; I-20 runs east to west across town, while I-75 runs from northwest to southeast, and I-85 runs from northeast to southwest. The latter two merge to form the Downtown Connector through the center of the city; the combined highway carries more than 340,000 vehicles per day. The Connector is considered one of the ten most congested segments of interstate highway in the United States.
Interstate 75 just north of the Windy Hill Road interchange in Cobb County carries 17 lanes, making it one of the widest expressways on Earth. The intersection of I-85 and I-285 in Doraville – officially called the Tom Moreland Interchange, but known to most residents as Spaghetti Junction – contains some of the tallest overpasses in the eastern United States. Metropolitan Atlanta is crisscrossed by thirteen freeways (in addition to the aforementioned interstates, I-575, Georgia 400, Georgia 141, I-675, Georgia 316, I-985, Stone Mountain Freeway (US 78), and Langford Parkway (SR 166)). One of the most notable features of Atlanta's roads are the sheer number of them named Peachtree Street or some variation thereof.
Notwithstanding heavy automotive usage, Atlanta's heavy rail system, operated by Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA), is the seventh busiest in the country. MARTA also operates a bus system within Fulton and Dekalb Counties. Clayton, Cobb, and Gwinnett counties each operate separate, autonomous transit authorities, using buses but no trains. However, many commuters in Atlanta and the surrounding suburbs use private automobiles as their primary transportation. (This may be partly because Georgia has had one of the lowest excise taxes on gasoline in the United States. Such taxes in Georgia have risen, however, in recent years: for example, in July 2002, Alaska was the only state with a tax lower than Georgia's 30.6 cents per gallon, but, by August 2005, Georgia's tax had risen by 34.6%, to 41.2 cents per gallon, and 21 states and the District of Columbia had taxes lower than Georgia's.) This results in heavy traffic during rush hour and contributes to Atlanta's air pollution, which has made Atlanta one of the more polluted cities in the country. In recent years, the Atlanta metro area has ranked at or near the top of the longest average commute times in the U.S. The Clean Air Campaign was created in 1996 to help ease congestion in metro Atlanta. In 2001, a group of transit riders joined to form Citizens for Progressive Transit, an organization dedicated to increasing the reach and improving the quality of public transportation in metro Atlanta.
The proposed Beltline would create a greenway and public transit system in a circle around the city from a series of mostly abandoned rail lines. This rail right-of-way would also accommodate multi-use trails connecting a string of existing and new parks. In addition, there is a proposed streetcar project that would create a streetcar line along Peachtree from downtown to Buckhead as well as possibly another East-West line.
Atlanta began as a railroad town and still serves as a major rail junction, with several freight lines belonging to Norfolk Southern and CSX intersecting below street level in downtown. It is home to major classification yards for both railroads, Inman Yard on the NS and Tilford Yard on the CSX. Long-distance passenger service is provided by Amtrak's Crescent train, which connects Atlanta with Baltimore, Maryland; Birmingham, Alabama; Charlotte, North Carolina; New Orleans, Louisiana; New York, New York; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Washington, D.C. The Amtrak station at 1688 Peachtree Street, N.W., known as Brookwood Station (leased to Amtrak by Norfolk Southern), is several miles north of downtown, however, and lacks a connection to the MARTA rail system. An ambitious, long-standing proposal would create a Multi-Modal Passenger Terminal downtown, adjacent to Philips Arena and the Five Points MARTA station, which would link, in a single facility, MARTA bus and rail, intercity bus services, proposed commuter rail services to other Georgia cities, and Amtrak.
Greyhound Lines provides intercity bus service between Atlanta and many locations throughout the United States and Canada. The Greyhound terminal is situated at 232 Forsyth Street, on the southern edge of the downtown area and directly beneath the Garnett (MARTA station).
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Atlanta Weather
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Atlanta has a humid subtropical climate, according to the Köppen classification, with hot, humid summers and mild winters by the standards of the United States.
The summers are hot and humid, with July highs averaging 89 °F, and low averaging 71 °F. Temperatures can exceed 100 °F during a major heat wave. The highest temperature recorded in the city is 105 °F, reached on July 13 and July 17, 1980. January is the coldest month, with an average high of 52 °F, and low of 33 °F. Warm fronts can bring springlike temperatures in the 60s and 70s in winter, and Arctic air masses can drop temperatures into the low teens as well. An average year sees frost on 48 days; snowfall averages around two inches annually. The heaviest single storm brought 10 inches on January 23, 1940. The lowest temperature recorded in the city is -9 °F, reached on 13 February 1899. A close second was -8 °F on 21 January 1985. Frequent ice storms can cause more problems than snow; the most severe such storm may have occurred on January 7, 1973.
Like the rest of the Southeastern U.S., Atlanta receives abundant rainfall, which is relatively evenly distributed throughout the year. Average annual rainfall is 50.2 inches.
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