| Atlanta | |||
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| — City — | |||
| City of Atlanta | |||
| From top to bottom left to right: Atlanta skyline seen from Buckhead, Fox Theatre, Georgia State Capitol, Centennial Olympic Park, Millennium Gate, Canopy Walk, Georgia Aquarium, The Phoenix statue, and Midtown skyline from Piedmont Park | |||
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| Motto: Resurgens (Latin for rising again) | |||
| City highlighted in Fulton County, location of Fulton County in the state of Georgia | |||
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Atlanta
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| Coordinates: | |||
| Country | United States of America | ||
| State | Georgia | ||
| County | Fulton and DeKalb | ||
| Terminus | 1837 | ||
| Marthasville | 1843 | ||
| City of Atlanta | 1847 | ||
| Government | |||
| • Mayor | Kasim Reed | ||
| Area | |||
| • City | 132.4 sq mi (343.0 km2) | ||
| • Land | 131.8 sq mi (341.2 km2) | ||
| • Water | 0.6 sq mi (1.8 km2) | ||
| • Urban | 1,963 sq mi (5,084.1 km2) | ||
| • Metro | 8,376 sq mi (21,693.7 km2) | ||
| Elevation | 738 to 1,050 ft (225 to 320 m) | ||
| Population (2010) | |||
| • City | 420,003 | ||
| • Density | 4,019.7/sq mi (1,552/km2) | ||
| • Urban | 4,750,000 | ||
| • Metro | 5,268,860 (9th) | ||
| • Metro density | 629.4/sq mi (243/km2) | ||
| • Demonym | Atlantan | ||
| Time zone | EST (UTC-5) | ||
| • Summer (DST) | EDT (UTC-4) | ||
| ZIP code(s) | 30060, 30301-30322, 30324-30334, 30336-30350, 30353 | ||
| Area code(s) | 404, 470, 678, 770 | ||
| FIPS code | 13-04000[1] | ||
| GNIS feature ID | 0351615[2] | ||
| Website | atlantaga.gov | ||
Atlanta ( /ətˈlæntə/, stressed /ætˈlæntə/, locally /ætˈlænə/) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003.[3] Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in the U.S.[4] Atlanta is the county seat of Fulton County, and a small portion of the city extends eastward into DeKalb County. Residents of the city and its surroundings are known as "Atlantans."[5]
Atlanta began as a settlement located at the intersection of two railroad lines, and it was incorporated in 1845. Today, the city is a major business city and the primary transportation hub of the Southeastern United States (via highway, railroad, and air), with Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport being the world's busiest airport since 1998.[6][7][8][9] The World Cities Study Group at Loughborough University rated Atlanta as an "alpha(-) world city."[10] With a gross domestic product of US$270 billion, Atlanta's economy ranks 15th among world cities and sixth in the nation.[11] The city is a center for services, finance, information technology, government, and higher education. Atlanta contains the country's third largest concentration[12] of Fortune 500 companies, and more than 75 percent of Fortune 1000 companies have business operations in the metropolitan area. Metro Atlanta is the world headquarters of corporations such as The Coca-Cola Company, Turner Broadcasting, The Home Depot, AT&T Mobility, UPS, and Delta Air Lines. As of 2010, Atlanta is the seventh most visited city in the United States, welcoming over 35 million domestic and overseas visitors per year.[13]
Atlanta is renowned for its robust cultural institutions, which draw creative people and audiences to the city for theater, the visual arts, and music. The city is multiethnic: it has long been known as a center of black wealth, political power and culture; it has the fastest-growing white population among major cities, and smaller but growing Hispanic and Asian populations. Geographically, the city is marked by its mild weather, rolling hills, and a dense tree coverage that is unique among major U.S. cities. Gentrification of Atlanta's neighborhoods, initially spurred by the 1996 Olympics, has intensified in the 21st century, altering the city's demographics, culture, and image.
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Prior to the arrival of European Americans in north Georgia, Creek and Cherokee Indians inhabited the area.[14] A Creek village located where Peachtree Creek flows into the Chattahoochee River, Standing Peachtree or Standing Pitch Tree, was the closest Indian settlement to what is now Atlanta.[15] As part of the systematic removal of Native Americans from northern Georgia from 1802 to 1825,[16] the Creek ceded the area that is now Metro Atlanta in 1821.[17] White settlers arrived in 1822, and nearby Decatur was founded the following year.[18]
In 1836, the Georgia General Assembly voted to build the Western and Atlantic Railroad in order to provide a link between the port of Savannah and the Midwest.[19] The initial route was to run from Chattanooga to a terminus east of the Chattahoochee River, which would eventually be linked to the Georgia Railroad from Augusta and the Macon and Western Railroad, which ran from Macon to Savannah. Engineers surveyed various possible routes to recommend the location of the terminus, after which the "zero milepost" stake was driven into the ground at what is now Five Points. A year later, the area around the terminus had developed into a settlement, first known as "Terminus" and then Thrasherville, for John Thrasher, a local merchant who built homes and a general store there.[20] By 1842, the town had six buildings and 30 residents and was renamed "Marthasville".[21] The Chief Engineer of the Georgia Railroad, J. Edgar Thomson, suggested renaming the area "Atlantica-Pacifica" to highlight the rail connection westwards, shortened to "Atlanta".[21] The residents approved, and the town was incorporated as Atlanta on December 29, 1847.[22] By 1854, another railroad connected Atlanta to LaGrange, and the town grew to 9,554 by 1860.[23][24] From the 1850s through the early 20th century, Atlanta was frequently called the "Gate City", for its role as a commercial gateway to a vast area, owing to its rail connectivity.[25][26]
During the Civil War, the nexus of multiple railroads in Atlanta made the city a hub for the distribution of military supplies. In 1864, following the capture of Chattanooga, the Union Army moved southward and began its invasion of north Georgia. The region now covered by Metropolitan Atlanta was the location of several major army battles, including Kennesaw Mountain, Peachtree Creek, Jonesborough (now Jonesboro), and the Battle of Atlanta. On September 1, 1864, following a four-month-long siege of the city by the Union Army under the command of General William Tecumseh Sherman, Confederate General John Bell Hood made the decision to retreat from Atlanta. General Hood ordered that all public buildings and possible assets to the Union Army be destroyed. On the next day, Mayor James Calhoun surrendered Atlanta to the Union Army, and on September 7, General Sherman ordered the city's civilian population to evacuate. On November 11, 1864, in preparation of the Union Army's march to Savannah, Sherman ordered for Atlanta to be burned to the ground, sparing only the city's churches and hospitals.[27] After the Civil War ended in 1865, Atlanta was gradually rebuilt. From 1867 until 1888, U.S. Army soldiers occupied the McPherson Barracks in southern Atlanta to ensure that the Reconstruction era reforms were carried out.
In 1868, the Georgia state capital was moved from Milledgeville to Atlanta due to the city's superior rail transportation network.[28] Starting in 1871 horse-drawn, and later, electric streetcars fueled real estate development and the city's expansion. Atlanta surpassed Savannah as Georgia's largest city by 1880. The Confederate Soldiers' Home was built in 1889 with support from Henry W. Grady, the editor of the Atlanta Constitution newspaper. Grady promoted Atlanta to potential investors as a city of the "New South", one to be built on a modern economy, less reliant on agriculture. To train Georgians to develop such industries, the state established the Georgia School of Technology (now Georgia Tech) in Atlanta in 1885. The Cotton States and International Exposition in 1895 successfully promoted the New South's development to the world[29] and was the site of Booker T. Washington's landmark speech encouraging racial cooperation.
Increased racial tensions, the result of a media-fueled hysteria over alleged sexual assaults on white women by black men, led to the Atlanta Race Riot of 1906, which left at least 27 people dead[30] and over 70 injured.
On May 21, 1917, the Great Atlanta Fire destroyed 1,938 buildings, mostly wooden, in what is now the Old Fourth Ward. The fire resulted in 10,000 people becoming homeless. Only one person died, a woman who died of a heart attack at seeing her home in ashes.
On December 15, 1939, Atlanta hosted the film premiere of Gone with the Wind, the epic film based on the best-selling novel by Atlanta's Margaret Mitchell. Several stars of the film, including Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Olivia de Havilland, and its legendary producer, David O. Selznick, attended the gala event, which was held at Loew's Grand Theatre, now demolished.[31] The reception was held at the Georgian Terrace Hotel, which still exists.
During World War II, manufacturing industries such as the Bell Aircraft Company's large factory in the northwestern suburb of Marietta, a massive growth in railroad traffic—and the manufacture of railroad cars—for the war effort, and great growth at Fort McPherson, Fort Gillem (est. 1941), and Rickenbacker Field forced a large growth in the population and economy of Atlanta. Shortly after the war, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was founded in Atlanta.[32]
In the 1950s, the city's newly-constructed freeway system enabled middle class Atlantans to relocate from the city to the suburbs. As a result, the city began to make up an ever smaller proportion of the metropolitan area's population, decreasing from 31% in 1960 to 9% in 2000.[33]
During the 1960s, Atlanta was a major organizing center of the Civil Rights Movement, with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Ralph David Abernathy, and students from Atlanta's historically Black colleges and universities playing major roles in the movement's leadership. In 1961, Atlanta Mayor Ivan Allen Jr. became one of the few Southern white mayors to support desegregation of his city's public schools.[34] While minimal compared to other cities, Atlanta was not completely free of racial strife. After forced-housing patterns were outlawed, violence, intimidation and organized political pressure was used in some white neighborhoods to discourage blacks from buying homes there. However, such efforts proved futile as real estate agents began engaging in blockbusting, encouraging white homeowners to sell at rock-bottom prices so that the agents could re-sell the homes to blacks at a large profit. The resulting white flight mostly affected Atlanta's western and southern neighborhoods, many of them transitioning to majority black by the 1970s.[35] In 1961, the city attempted to thwart blockbusting by erecting road barriers in Cascade Heights, countering the efforts of civic and business leaders to foster Atlanta as the "city too busy to hate."[35][36]
In 1960, whites comprised 61.7% of the city's population.[37] African Americans became a majority in the city by 1970, and exercised new-found political influence by electing Atlanta's first black mayor, Maynard Jackson, in 1973. However, suburbanization, rising prices, a booming economy, and new migrants have decreased the black percentage of the city from a high of 69% in 1980 to 54% in 2010.[38] From 2000 to 2010, Atlanta gained 22,763 white residents, 5,142 Asian residents, and 3,095 Hispanic residents, while it lost 31,678 black residents.[39][40]
In 1990, Atlanta was selected as the site for the 1996 Summer Olympic Games. Following the announcement, Atlanta undertook several major construction projects to improve the city's parks, sports facilities, and transportation. Atlanta became the third American city to host the Summer Olympics. The games themselves were marred by numerous organizational inefficiencies, as well as the Centennial Olympic Park bombing.[41]
Between the mid-1990s and 2010, stimulated by funding from the HOPE VI program, Atlanta demolished nearly all of its public housing, a total of 17,000 units and about 10% of all housing units in the city.[42][43][44]. The mixed-income communities that rose in their place housed only 17% of the former residents as of 2009.[42][43]
During the 2000s, Atlanta underwent a profound transformation culturally, demographically, and physically. Much of the city's change during the decade was driven by young, college-educated professionals: from 2000 to 2009, the three-mile radius surrounding Downtown Atlanta gained 9,722 residents aged 25 to 34 holding at least a four-year degree, an increase of 61%.[45][46] Meanwhile, as gentrification spread throughout the city, Atlanta's cultural offerings expanded: the High Museum of Art doubled in size; the Alliance Theatre won a Tony Award; and numerous art galleries were established on the once-industrial Westside.[47] In 2005, the $2.8 billion BeltLine project was adopted, with the stated goals of converting a disused 22-mile freight railroad loop that surrounds the central city into an art-filled multi-use trail and increasing the city's park space by 40%.[48]
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city encompases 132.4 square miles (342.9 km2), of which 131.7 square miles (341.1 km2) is land and 0.7 square miles (1.8 km2) is water. At about 1,050 feet (320 m) above mean sea level, Atlanta sits atop a ridge south of the Chattahoochee River.
The Eastern Continental Divide line enters Atlanta from the south, proceeding to the downtown area. From downtown, the divide line runs eastward along DeKalb Avenue and the CSX rail lines through Decatur.[49] Rainwater that falls on the south and east side runs eventually into the Atlantic Ocean, while rainwater on the north and west side of the divide runs into the Gulf of Mexico[49] via the Chattahoochee River. That river is part of the ACF River Basin, and from which Atlanta and many of its neighbors draw most of their water. Being at the far northwestern edge of the city, much of the river's natural habitat is still preserved, in part by the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area. Downstream however, excessive water use during droughts and pollution during floods has been a source of contention and legal battles with neighboring states Alabama and Florida.[50][51]
Atlanta has a humid subtropical climate, (Cfa) according to the Köppen classification, with hot, humid summers and cool winters that are occasionally cold by the standards of the southern United States. January averages 42.7 °F (5.9 °C), with temperatures in the suburbs slightly cooler. Warm, maritime air can bring springlike highs while strong Arctic air masses can push lows into the teens (−11 to −7 °C). High temperatures in July average 89 °F (31.7 °C) but occasionally exceed to near 100 °F (38 °C). Atlanta's high mean elevation distinguishes it from most other southern and eastern cities, and contributes to a more temperate climate than is found in areas farther south.[52]
Typical of the southeastern U.S., Atlanta receives abundant rainfall, which is relatively evenly distributed throughout the year, though spring and early fall are markedly drier. Average annual rainfall is 50.2 inches (1,280 mm). Temperatures at or above 90 °F (32 °C) occur more than 40 days per year; overnight freezing can be expected over 45 days, but high temperatures that do not climb above the freezing mark are rare. Annual snowfall averages 2.5 inches (6.4 cm) annually. The heaviest single storm brought around 16 inches on March 12–14, 1993 during The Storm of the Century.[53] True blizzards are rare but possible; one hit in March 1993. Ice storms usually cause more trouble than does snowfall; the most severe such storms may have occurred on January 7, 1973 and January 9, 2011.[54] In 2010, Atlanta had its first White Christmas since 1882.
Extremes range from −9 °F (−23 °C) in February 1899 to 105 °F (41 °C) in July 1980.[55] More recently, a low one degree away from the record, was observed on January 21, 1985.[55]
| Atlanta | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Climate chart (explanation) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Climate data for Atlanta (1981-2010 normals) | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
| Record high °F (°C) | 79 (26) |
80 (27) |
89 (32) |
93 (34) |
97 (36) |
102 (39) |
105 (41) |
104 (40) |
102 (39) |
95 (35) |
84 (29) |
79 (26) |
105 (41) |
| Average high °F (°C) | 52.7 (11.5) |
57.0 (13.9) |
65.0 (18.3) |
72.8 (22.7) |
80.3 (26.8) |
86.9 (30.5) |
89.5 (31.9) |
88.4 (31.3) |
82.4 (28.0) |
73.0 (22.8) |
63.9 (17.7) |
54.4 (12.4) |
72.19 (22.33) |
| Average low °F (°C) | 34.2 (1.2) |
37.7 (3.2) |
44.2 (6.8) |
51.4 (10.8) |
60.3 (15.7) |
68.0 (20.0) |
71.2 (21.8) |
70.6 (21.4) |
64.6 (18.1) |
53.8 (12.1) |
44.3 (6.8) |
36.5 (2.5) |
53.07 (11.70) |
| Record low °F (°C) | −8 (−22) |
−9 (−23) |
10 (−12) |
25 (−4) |
37 (3) |
39 (4) |
53 (12) |
55 (13) |
36 (2) |
28 (−2) |
3 (−16) |
0 (−18) |
−9 (−23) |
| Precipitation inches (mm) | 4.20 (106.7) |
4.67 (118.6) |
4.80 (121.9) |
3.36 (85.3) |
3.66 (93) |
3.95 (100.3) |
5.26 (133.6) |
3.90 (99.1) |
4.47 (113.5) |
3.41 (86.6) |
4.10 (104.1) |
3.90 (99.1) |
49.68 (1,261.9) |
| Snowfall inches (cm) | 1.3 (3.3) |
.4 (1) |
.6 (1.5) |
0 (0) |
0 (0) |
0 (0) |
0 (0) |
0 (0) |
0 (0) |
0 (0) |
0 (0) |
.3 (0.8) |
2.7 (6.9) |
| Avg. precipitation days (≥ 0.01 in) | 10.9 | 9.8 | 9.7 | 8.6 | 9.3 | 9.9 | 11.7 | 9.7 | 7.5 | 6.9 | 8.8 | 10.5 | 113.3 |
| Avg. snowy days (≥ 0.1 in) | .7 | .6 | .2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .4 | 1.9 |
| Sunshine hours | 164.3 | 172.3 | 220.1 | 261.0 | 288.3 | 285.0 | 272.8 | 257.3 | 228.0 | 283.7 | 186.0 | 164.3 | 2,783.1 |
| Source: NOAA [56] HKO (sun only, 1961−1990) [57] The Weather Channel (record temperatures) [58] | |||||||||||||
In 2007, the American Lung Association ranked Atlanta as having the 13th highest level of particle pollution in the United States.[59] The combination of pollution and pollen levels, and uninsured citizens caused the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America to name Atlanta as the worst American city for asthma sufferers to live in.[60]
Bright spots include projects that encourage smart growth, such as the BeltLine and Atlantic Station mixed-use development, which the Environmental Protection Agency commended in 2005.[61] In 2009, Atlanta's Virginia-Highland became the first carbon-neutral zone in the United States. There, neighborhood merchants, through the Chicago Climate Exchange, directly fund the Valley Wood Carbon Sequestration Project (thousands of acres of forest in rural Georgia).[62][63]
On March 14, 2008, an EF2 tornado hit downtown Atlanta with winds up to 135 mph (217 km/h). The tornado caused damage to Philips Arena, the Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel, the Georgia Dome, Centennial Olympic Park, the CNN Center, and the Georgia World Congress Center. It also damaged the nearby neighborhoods of Vine City to the west and Cabbagetown, and Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills to the east. While there were dozens of injuries, only one fatality was reported.[64] City officials warned it could take months to clear the devastation left by the tornado.[65]
Atlanta has a reputation as the "city in a forest" due to its abundance of trees, unique among major cities.[66][67][68][69][70] The city's main street is named after a tree, and beyond the Downtown, Midtown, and Buckhead business districts, the skyline gives way to a dense canopy of woods that spreads into the suburbs. The nickname is factually accurate, as the city's tree coverage percentage is at 36%, the highest out of all major American cities, and above the national average of 27%.[71] Atlanta's tree coverage does not go unnoticed—it was the main reason cited by National Geographic in naming Atlanta a "Place of a Lifetime":[72]
"For a sprawling city with the nation’s ninth-largest metro area, Atlanta is surprisingly lush with trees—magnolias, dogwoods, Southern pines, and magnificent oaks."[73]
The city's lush tree canopy, which filters out pollutants and cools sidewalks and buildings, has increasingly been under assault from man and nature due to heavy rains, drought, aged forests, new pests, and urban construction. A 2001 study found that Atlanta's heavy tree cover declined from 48% in 1974 to 38% in 1996. This loss of tree canopy resulted in a 33% increase in stormwater runoff and a loss of 11 million pounds of pollutants removed annually, a value of approximately $28 million per year.[74] Due to a historic drought in the late 2000s, Atlanta lost trees at an unprecedented rate. For example, Piedmont Park lost about a dozen large, historic trees in 2009, compared to two or three during normal years. Although many of Atlanta's trees are between 80–100 years old and thus reaching the end of their normal lifespan, the drought accelerated their demise by shrinking the trees' roots. However, the problem is being addressed by community organizations and city government.[67] Trees Atlanta, a non-profit organization founded in 1985, has planted and distributed over 75,000 shade trees.[75] Atlanta's city government awarded $130,000 in grants to neighborhood groups to plant trees.[67]
Being a city of trees encourages outdoor activity, and thanks to a perpetually mild climate, nature is a constant guest in Atlanta. The city is home to the Atlanta Dogwood Festival, an annual arts and crafts festival held one weekend during early April, when the native dogwoods are in bloom. Downtown's Centennial Olympic Park is the start and finish of the Georgia Marathon, which courses through central Atlanta and Decatur suburbs, business sections and major schools of higher learning like Georgia State University, Agnes Scott College, Emory University and Georgia Tech.
Atlanta's green space is composed of 343 parks, nature preserves, gardens, and public spaces (3,622 acres (14.66 km2) in all) and overseen by the city's Department of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs.
Piedmont Park, site of the 1895 Cotton States Expo, is Atlanta's iconic green space. The Midtown park, which underwent a major renovation and expansion in 2010, attracts visitors from across the region and hosts various cultural events throughout the year. Grant Park, located on the east side, is home to the city zoo, as well as the Cyclorama exhibit. Chastain Park, the primary recreational center for the northern Buckhead district, contains an amphitheater for live music concerts. Urban parks include Woodruff Park and Hurt Park, which provide open space for the downtown lunch crowd. Atlanta's largest park, Southside Park, is remote and nearly undeveloped, and the planned Westside Park in northwest Atlanta, which will be constructed on the site of a former gravel quarry, will eclipse Southside as the city's largest. Several nature preserves line the south fork of Peachtree Creek in the Morningside neighborhood, while part of the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area lies in the city's northwest corner. The Atlanta Botanical Garden is home to the Canopy Walk, a 600-foot elevated walkway ambling 40 feet from the ground through a 15-acre forest of mature hardwoods, and the only canopy-level pathway of its kind in the United States.
The BeltLine, a former rail corridor that forms a 22-mile loop around Atlanta's central neighborhoods, has been acquired and transformed into public space. Most of the corridor opened in the late-2000s as a walking path, with plans for development of multi-use trails and, eventually, public transit. A trail has already been constructed near the West End neighborhood, while another one, under construction as of 2012, will connect Piedmont Park to Inman Park. BeltLine projects will increase Atlanta's park space by 40%,[76] including two new parks: Historic Fourth Ward Park, now open, and Westside Park. In addition to BeltLine trails, PATH maintains a network of biking and walking trails in Metro Atlanta, including one that traverses Atlanta's east side, traveling past the Carter Center and through Freedom Park.
Most of Atlanta was burned during the Civil War, depleting the city of a large stock of its historic architecture. Yet Atlanta, architecturally, had never been particularly "southern." Because Atlanta originated as a railroad town, rather than a patrician southern seaport like Savannah or Charleston, many of the city's landmarks could have easily been erected in the Northeast or Midwest.[77] In addition, unlike many other Southern cities, such as Richmond, Charleston, Wilmington, and New Orleans, Atlanta chose not to retain what remained of its historic antebellum architectural characteristics. Instead, Atlanta viewed itself as the leading city of a progressive "New South," and opted for expressive modern structures.[78]
As a result of Atlanta's embrace of modernism, its cityscape is dominated by relatively recent architectural styles, containing works by most major U.S. firms and some of the more prominent architects of the 20th century, including Michael Graves, Richard Meier, Marcel Breuer, Renzo Piano, Pickard Chilton, and locally-based, internationally-known Mack Scogin and Merrill Elam Architects. The city's skyline, which began its marked rise in the 1960s, is punctuated with highrise and midrise buildings of both modern and postmodern vintage. At 1,023 feet (312 m), Atlanta's tallest skyscraper—the Bank of America Plaza—is the 52nd-tallest building in the world and the 9th tallest building in the United States.[79]
Unfortunately, the city's embrace of modernism and postmodernism resulted in an ambivalent approach toward historic preservation. Such an approach ultimately led to the destruction of notable architectural landmarks, including the Equitable Building (Atlanta's first skyscraper), Terminal Station, and the Carnegie Library. Atlanta's cultural icon, the Fox Theatre, would have met the same fate had it not been for a grassroots effort to save it in the mid-1970s.[77]
The city's most notable hometown architect may be John Portman, whose creation of the atrium hotel beginning with the Hyatt Regency Atlanta—one of the tallest buildings in Atlanta at the time of its completion in 1967[80]—made a significant mark on hospitality architecture, both nationally and internationally. Through his work, Portman—a graduate of Georgia Tech's College of Architecture—reshaped downtown Atlanta with his designs for the Atlanta Merchandise Mart, Peachtree Center, the Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel, and SunTrust Plaza.[77]
The city is divided into 25 neighborhood planning units or NPUs, which in turn are divided into 242 officially defined neighborhoods.[81] Two of those, Downtown and Midtown, are in fact large areas of the city consisting of a number of smaller neighborhoods.[82][83]
The city's contains three major high-rise districts, which form a north-south axis along Peachtree: Downtown, Midtown, and Buckhead (there are also two major suburban business districts, Perimeter Center to the north and Cumberland to the northwest).[84] Surrounding these high-density districts are leafy single-family residential neighborhoods, earning Atlanta the nickname "the city of neighborhoods."[85]
Downtown contains the most office space in the metro area and is home to many government offices. Notable skyscrapers include the 191 Peachtree Tower, Westin Peachtree Plaza, SunTrust Plaza, Georgia-Pacific Tower, and the buildings of Peachtree Center.
Midtown Atlanta, located north of Downtown, developed rapidly after the completion of One Atlantic Center in 1987. Midtown is a major employment center for the metro area, and also contains the offices of many of the region's law firms.[86] In 2006, former Mayor Franklin set in motion a plan to make the 14-block stretch of Peachtree Street in Midtown (the "Midtown Mile") a street-level luxury shopping destination to rival Beverly Hills' Rodeo Drive or Chicago's Magnificent Mile,[87][88] but in 2011 these plans were rolled back to more modest levels.[89]
Buckhead, the city's uptown district, is eight miles (13 km) north of Downtown. Beginning as a wealthy suburban community with the construction of Lenox Square mall in the 1950s, the area has since developed into a major commercial and financial center. Skyscapers and hotels surround the Lenox Square and Phipps Plaza malls, forming the core Buckhead business district. Just south of the malls is Buckhead Village, the historic center of the district and the location of the planned "Buckhead Atlanta" (formerly "Streets of Buckhead") mixed-use development. Surrounding this commercial core are wealthy neighborhoods of single-family homes, including historic, pre-war Garden Hills and Brookwood Hills.
Atlanta's east side is marked by historic streetcar suburbs built from the 1890s-1930s as havens for the upper middle class. Each of these neighborhoods are unique, containing separate commercial villages surrounded by leafy, architecturally-distinct residential streets. East side neighborhoods include Victorian Inman Park and Grant Park, craftsman Virginia-Highland and Kirkwood, and Bohemian Candler Park and East Atlanta.[90] On Atlanta's west side, former warehouses and factories have been transformed into condos, apartments, retail space, art galleries, and sophisticated restaurants, making the once-industrial West Midtown a model neighborhood for smart growth, historic rehabilitation, and infill construction.[91]
In Southwestern Atlanta, the areas closest to Downtown are streetcar suburbs, including the historic West End. Farther from Downtown are postwar suburban neighborhoods, including Collier Heights and Cascade Heights, home to the city's established and affluent African-American elite.[92][93] Further southwest are newer neighborhoods that are also havens for middle-class and upper-class black homeowners.[94]
Northwestern Atlanta is marked by Atlanta's poorest and most dangerous areas, such as The Bluff and English Avenue.
Many of Atlanta's neighborhoods experienced the urban flight that affected other major American cities in the 20th century, causing the decline of well-to-do east side neighborhoods such as Inman Park and Candler Park. In the 1970s, after neighborhood opposition blocked two freeways from being built through the east side, the area became the starting point for Atlanta's gentrification wave. By the early 1990s, the neighborhoods had transformed into shining examples of renewal, and are now considered hip, urban neighborhoods, appealing to young residents who wish to be in close proximity to entertainment and commercial options.[95]
Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, gentrification expanded into other parts of Atlanta, spreading throughout the historic streetcar suburbs east of Downtown and Midtown, such as the Old Fourth Ward, Kirkwood, and Cabbagetown, across the neighborhoods adjacent to the BeltLine, and into the once-industrial West Midtown. On the east side, historic bungalows were renovated, new homes were constructed, and once-forgotten leafy, urban villages were rehabilitated. On the western side of the city, condos, apartments, and retail space were built into former warehouses spaces, transforming once-industrial West Midtown into a vibrant neighborhood. While the gentrifcation of Atlanta's neighborhoods slowed somewhat during the Late-2000s recession, it still continues at a steady pace, expanding into areas such as Capitol View, Peoplestown, and Adair Park.[95]
Atlanta, while very much in the South, has a culture that is no longer strictly Southern. This is because in addition to a large population of migrants from other parts of the U.S., nearly three-quarters of a million foreign-born people make Atlanta their home, accounting for 13 percent of the city's population and making Atlanta one of the most multi-cultural cities in the nation.[96] A random Atlantan is more likely to have been born in Bangalore, Seoul, or Indianapolis than in Atlanta. Thus, although traditional Southern culture is part of Atlanta's cultural fabric, it's mostly the backdrop to one of the nation's leading international cities. This unique cultural combination reveals itself at the High Museum of Art, the bohemian shops of Little Five Points, and the multi-cultural dining choices found along Buford Highway.[97]
The classical music scene in the metropolitan Atlanta area includes the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Atlanta Opera, Atlanta Ballet, Gwinnett Ballet Theatre, Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, New Trinity Baroque, the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, Georgia Boy Choir and the Atlanta Boy Choir. Classical musicians have included renowned conductors Robert Shaw and the Atlanta Symphony's Robert Spano.
The Fox Theatre is an historic landmark and one of the highest grossing venues in the world. The city also has a large collection of highly successful music venues of various sizes that host top and emerging touring acts. Popular local venues include the Tabernacle, the Variety Playhouse, The Masquerade, The Star Community Bar and the EARL.
The city contains a flourishing theater community. Major Theater groups include the Tony Award-winning Alliance Theater (part of the Woodruff Arts Center), the internationally-known Center for Puppetry Arts, Theatrical Outfit, Seven Stages Theater, The Horizon Theater Company, improv group Dad's Garage, Actor's Express, and the Shakespeare Tavern.
Atlanta is also a major hub for the marching arts. The city is home of Spirit Drum and Bugle Corps, who competes in Drum Corps International, and both Alliance Drum and Bugle Corps and the CorpsVets Drum and Bugle Corps, both of which participate in the Drum Corps Associates circuit.
Atlanta is the home of recording studios/companies So So Def Recordings, Grand Hustle Records, BME Recordings, Block Entertainment, Konvict Muzik, and 1017 Brick Squad.
Atlanta is one of the nation's leading tourist destinations, both for Americans and those visiting the U.S. from abroad. As of 2010, the city is the seventh-most visited city in the United States, with over 35 million visitors per year.[13]
Atlanta features the world's largest indoor aquarium,[98] the Georgia Aquarium, containing more animals than any other aquarium in more than 8 million US gallons (30,000 m3) of water and more than sixty exhibits, including a dolphin exhibit.[99]
In 2010, American Style Magazine ranked Atlanta as the ninth-best city for the arts.[100] As such, the city is home to many significant art museums. The renowned High Museum of Art is arguably the South's leading art museum and among the most-visited art museums in the world.[101] The Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA), a design museum, is the only such museum in the Southeast.[102] Contemporary art museums include the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center and the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia. Atlanta's Michael C. Carlos Museum contains the largest collection of ancient art in the Southeast.[103]
Atlanta also hosts a variety of history museums and attractions, including the Atlanta History Center, detailing the history of Atlanta and Georgia; the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site, which includes the preserved boyhood home of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as well as his final resting place; the Atlanta Cyclorama & Civil War Museum, a civil war museum that houses a massive 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, housing U.S. President Jimmy Carter's papers and other material relating to the Carter administration and the Carter family's life; historic house museum Rhodes Hall, a Romanesque Revival house inspired by German castles; the Wren's Nest, former home of Brer Rabbit author Joel Chandler-Harris; the Margaret Mitchell House and Museum, site of the writing of the best-selling novel Gone With the Wind; the World of Coca-Cola, featuring the history of the world famous soft drink brand and its well-known advertising; the Delta Heritage Museum, an aviation museum that also details the history of the Delta corporation; the Robert C. Williams Paper Museum, which showcases the history of paper and paper technology, and also allows visitors to create their own paper; the Fernbank Museum of Natural History, which presents exhibitions and programming about natural history; and the William Breman Jewish Heritage & Holocaust Museum, one of only two Holocaust museums in the southeast.
Museums geared specifically towards children include the Fernbank Science Center, Imagine It! The Children's Museum of Atlanta. In addition, the Center for Puppetry Arts presents puppets from various time periods and countries around the world, hosts puppet performances, and allows visitors to create their own puppets. Future museums planned for the city include the National Health Museum, the College Football Hall of Fame, and the Center of Civil and Human Rights, all to be constructed in the emerging tourist district surrounding Centennial Olympic Park.
Due to Atlanta's mild climate, outdoor events and attractions are plentiful in the city. Piedmont Park hosts many of Atlanta's festivals and cultural events, including the annual Atlanta Dogwood Festival, Festival Peachtree Latino, Music Midtown, and Atlanta Pride.[104] Atlanta Botanical Garden sits next to the park, home to the 600-foot-long (180 m) Kendeda Canopy Walk, a skywalk that allows visitors to tour one of the city's last remaining urban forests from 40-foot-high (12 m). The Canopy Walk is considered the only canopy-level pathway of its kind in the United States. Zoo Atlanta, located in Grant Park, houses over 1,300 animals representing more than 220 species. Home to the nation’s largest collections of gorillas and orangutans, the Zoo is also one of only four zoos in the U.S. currently housing giant pandas.[105] Just east of the city rises Stone Mountain, the largest piece of exposed granite in the world.[106] During Labor Day weekend each year, Atlanta hosts the popular multi-genre convention Dragon*Con, held downtown at the Hyatt Regency, Marriot Marquis, Hilton and Sheraton hotels. The event attracts an estimated 30,000 attendees annually. The entire month of August is dedicated to filmmaking when Atlanta hosts the month-long celebration of independent film known as Independent Film Month.[107] In October, Midtown Atlanta is host to the popular Out on Film gay film festival, attracting film makers and fans from around the world.[108]
Atlanta's cuisine contains a mix of urban establishments garnering national attention, ethnic restaurants offering cuisine from every corner of the world, and traditional eateries specializing in Southern dining.
In the last decade, Atlanta has emerged as a sophisticated restaurant town.[109] Many of the restaurants that have opened within the city's gentrifying neighborhoods since 2000 have garnered praise on a national scale, including Bocado, Bacchanalia, and Miller Union in West Midtown, Empire State South in Midtown, and Two Urban Licks, Parish, and Rathbun's on the east side.[47][110][111][112]
Visitors seeking to sample international Atlanta are directed to Buford Highway, the city's international corridor. There, the million-plus immigrants that make Atlanta home have established various authentic ethnic restaurants, ranging from Vietnamese, Indian, Cuban, Korean, Mexican, Chinese, Russian, and Mongolian.[113]
For traditional Southern fare, one of the city's most famous establishments is The Varsity, a long-lived fast food chain and the world's largest drive-in restaurant.[114] Mary Mac's Tea Room, where every morning workers shuck bushels of corn, wash selected greens, and snap fresh green beans by hand, has been Atlanta's Southern dining destination for more than 60 years.
There are over 1,000 places of worship within the city of Atlanta.[115] Protestant Christian faiths are well represented in Atlanta,[116] the city historically being a major center for traditional Southern denominations such as the Southern Baptist Convention, the United Methodist Church, and the Presbyterian Church (USA). Atlanta is home to various Protestant megachurches, including North Point Community Church, the second largest church in the United States,[117] and the Anglican Church of the Apostles.
Atlanta contains a large, and rapidly growing, Roman Catholic population. The number of Catholics grew from 292,300 members in 1998 to 900,000 members in 2010, an increase of 207 percent. The population is expected to top 1 million by 2011.[118][119] The increase is fueled by Catholics moving to Atlanta from other parts of the U.S. and the world, and from newcomers to the church.[119] About 16 percent of all metropolitan Atlanta residents are Catholic.[120] As the see of the 84 parish Archdiocese of Atlanta, Atlanta serves as the metropolitan see for the Province of Atlanta. The archdiocesan cathedral is the Cathedral of Christ the King and the current archbishop is the Most Rev. Wilton D. Gregory.[121][122] Also located in the metropolitan area are several Eastern Catholic parishes which fall in the jurisdiction of Eastern Catholic eparchies for the Melkite, Maronite, Syro-Malabar, and Byzantine Catholics.[123]
The city hosts the Greek Orthodox Annunciation Cathedral, the see of the Metropolis of Atlanta and its bishop, Alexios. Other Orthodox Christian jurisdictions represented by parishes in the Atlanta area include the Antiochian Orthodox Church, the Russian Orthodox Church, the Romanian Orthodox Church, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Orthodox Church in America.
Atlanta is also the see of the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta, which includes all of northern Georgia, much of middle Georgia and the Chattahoochee River valley of western Georgia. This Diocese is headquartered at the Cathedral of St Philip in Buckhead and is led by the Right Reverend J. Neil Alexander.[124]
Atlanta also serves as headquarters for several regional Protestant church bodies. The Southeastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America maintains offices in downtown Atlanta; ELCA parishes are numerous throughout the metro area. The headquarters for The Salvation Army's United States Southern Territory is located in Atlanta.[125] The denomination has eight churches, numerous social service centers, and youth clubs located throughout the Atlanta area.
Traditional African American denominations such as the National Baptist Convention, the Church of God in Christ, and the African Methodist Episcopal Church are represented in the area. These churches have several seminaries that form the Interdenominational Theological Center complex in the Atlanta University Center.
The city has a temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints located in the suburb of Sandy Springs.
Atlanta also has a considerable number of ethnic Christian congregations such as Korean Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian Churches, the Tamil Church Atlanta, Telugu Church, Hindi Church, Malayalam Church, Ethiopian, Chinese, and many more traditional ethnic religious groups.
Metropolitan Atlanta is also home to a Jewish community estimated to include 120,000 individuals in 61,300 households.[126] As of 2006, Atlanta's Jewish population is the 11th largest in the United States, up from 17th largest in 1996.[126] There are eruvim in the Virginia Highland and Toco Hills neighborhoods inside 285, as well as in Dunwoody, Sandy Springs and Alpharetta in the North Metro Area.
The BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir Atlanta in adjacent Lilburn, Georgia is currently the largest Hindu temple in the world outside of India.[127] It is one of approximately 15 Hindu temples in the metro Atlanta area.
There also are an estimated 75,000 Muslims in the area and approximately 35 mosques.[128]
Atlanta is home to professional franchises for three major team sports: the Atlanta Braves of Major League Baseball, the Atlanta Hawks of the National Basketball Association, and the Atlanta Falcons of the National Football League.
The Braves began playing in 1871 as the Boston Red Stockings, and is the oldest continually operating professional sports franchise in America.[129] The Braves won the World Series in 1995, and had an unprecedented run of 14 straight divisional championships from 1991 to 2005.
The Atlanta Falcons (American football) have played in Atlanta since 1966 and currently play at the Georgia Dome. They have won the division title four times (1980, 1998, 2004, 2010) and one conference championship—going on to finish as the runner-up to the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXXIII in 1999.[130]
The Atlanta Hawks (basketball) began in 1946 as the Tri-Cities Blackhawks, playing in Moline, Illinois. The team moved to Milwaukee in 1951, then to St. Louis in 1955, where they won their sole NBA Championship as the St. Louis Hawks. In 1968, they came to Atlanta.[131] In October 2007, the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) announced that Atlanta would receive an expansion franchise, that commenced their first season in May 2008. The new team is the Atlanta Dream, and plays in Philips Arena.[132]
From 1972 to 1980, the Atlanta Flames played ice hockey in the National Hockey League (NHL), but moved to Calgary in 1980. Then, in 1997, Atlanta was awarded an NHL expansion franchise and in 1999, the Atlanta Thrashers began playing (at Philips Arena). The Thrashers moved to Winnipeg in 2011.
The original Atlanta Beat of the Women's United Soccer Association (WUSA, 2001–2003) was the only team to reach the playoffs in each of the league's three seasons. The new Atlanta Beat made its debut in Women's Professional Soccer (WPS) in April 2010, and the following month played its first game in the new soccer-specific stadium that it shares with Kennesaw State University in the northern suburb of Kennesaw. Atlanta is also home to the Atlanta Silverbacks of the North American Soccer League (men) and W-League (women). In 2007, the Silverbacks had their best season advancing to the USL Finals against the Seattle Sounders, who have since been promoted to the MLS. The city is supposedly also being considered for a potential expansion team in Major League Soccer.[133] The Atlanta Chiefs won the championship of the now-defunct North American Soccer League in 1968.
In golf, the final PGA Tour event of the season that features elite players, The Tour Championship, is played annually at East Lake Golf Club.[134] This golf course is used because of its connection to the great amateur golfer Bobby Jones, an Atlanta native.
Atlanta has a rich tradition in collegiate athletics. The Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets participate in 17 intercollegiate sports, including football and basketball. Tech competes in the Atlantic Coast Conference, and is home to Bobby Dodd Stadium, the oldest continuously used on campus site for college football in the southern United States, and oldest currently in Division I FBS.[135] The stadium was built in 1913 by students of Georgia Tech. Atlanta also played host to the second intercollegiate football game in the South, played between Auburn University and the University of Georgia in Piedmont Park in 1892; this game is now called the Deep South's Oldest Rivalry.[136]
Atlanta is home to two of the nation's Gaelic football clubs, Na Fianna Ladies and Mens Gaelic Football Club and Clan na nGael Ladies and Mens Gaelic Football Club. Both are members of the North American County Board, a branch of the Gaelic Athletic Association, the worldwide governing body of Gaelic games.[137] Atlanta is also home to many rugby union clubs including the Atlanta Harlequins, ranked #2 in the United States in Division 1 for women's clubs under USA Rugby, the governing body for rugby in the United States.[138]
Atlanta was the host city for the Centennial 1996 Summer Olympics. Atlanta has also hosted Super Bowl XXVIII in 1994 and Super Bowl XXXIV, as well as the NCAA Final Four Men's Basketball Championship, most recently in 2007. The city hosts college football's annual Chick-fil-A Bowl (Formerly known as the Peach Bowl) and the Peachtree Road Race, the world’s largest 10 km race.[139]
The Atlanta Legion rugby league football club will compete in the American National Rugby League's Atlantic Conference in 2012 and will play home games at the Silverbacks Park.[140][141]
| Club | Sport | League | Home Venue | League Championships |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Atlanta Falcons | Football | NFL | Georgia Dome | 0 |
| Atlanta Braves | Baseball | MLB | Turner Field | 1 (1995) |
| Atlanta Hawks | Basketball | NBA | Philips Arena | 0 |
| Atlanta Dream | Women's Basketball | WNBA | Philips Arena | 0 |
| Atlanta Silverbacks | Soccer | NASL | Atlanta Silverbacks Park | 1 (2007) |
| Atlanta Silverbacks Women | Women's Soccer | W-League | Atlanta Silverbacks Park | 0 |
| Atlanta Beat | Women's Soccer | WPS | KSU Soccer Stadium | 0 |
| Atlanta Xplosion | Women's Football | IWFL | James R. Hallford Stadium | 1 (2006) |
| Gwinnett Gladiators | Hockey | ECHL | Arena at Gwinnett Center | 0 |
| Gwinnett Braves | Baseball | IL | Coolray Field | 0 |
| Georgia Force | Arena Football | AFL | Arena at Gwinnett Center | 0 |
| Atlanta Legion | Rugby league | American National Rugby League | Silverbacks Park | 0 |
The Atlanta metro area is served by many local television stations and is the eighth largest designated market area (DMA) in the U.S. with 2,387,520 homes (2.0% of the total U.S.).[142] There are also numerous local radio stations serving every genre of music and sports.
Cox Enterprises, a privately held company controlled by 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;[143] the company also publishes over a dozen daily newspapers in the United States, including The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. WSB AM—the flagship station of Cox Radio—was the first broadcast station in the South.
The notable television stations in Atlanta are Cox Enterprises-owned ABC affiliate (and the city's first TV station) WSB-TV (Channel 2.1), Fox Television's WAGA-TV (Channel 5.1), Gannett Company's NBC affiliate WXIA-TV (Channel 11.1, also known as "11 Alive") and its sister station MyNetworkTV affiliate WATL-TV (Channel 36.1, known as MyAtlTV), the Univision owned station WUVG-TV (Channel 34.1) and its sister station Telefutura (Channel 34.2), the Meredith Corporation's CBS affiliate WGCL-TV (Channel 46.1), and CBS-owned CW station WUPA (Channel 69.1).
The market has two PBS affiliates: WGTV (Channel 8.1), the flagship station of the statewide Georgia Public Television network, and WPBA (Channel 30.1), owned by Atlanta Public Schools.
Atlanta is the home of the nation's first cable superstation, then known as WTCG (Channel 17), first transmitting its signal via satellite in December 1976; the station itself first signed-on in Atlanta as WJRJ-TV in 1967. The station changed its call letters to the more-familiar WTBS in 1979, and became WPCH-TV (also known as "Peachtree TV") in 2007, when its parent company, the Time Warner-owned Turner Broadcasting System decided to separate the local and national programming feeds.
The Atlanta area is also home to other Turner Broadcasting properties TNT, CNN, Cartoon Network, HLN, truTV, and Turner Classic Movies, as well as NBC Universal's The Weather Channel.
The Atlanta radio market is ranked seventh in the nation by Arbitron, and is home to more than forty radio stations, notably of which including WSB-AM (750), WCNN-AM (680), WQXI-AM (790), WGST-AM (640), WVEE-FM (103.3), WSB-FM (98.5), WWWQ-FM (99.7), and WSBB-FM (95.5).
Atlanta is one of ten U.S. cities classified as an "alpha-world city" by a 2010 study at Loughborough University,[144] and ranks fourth in the number of Fortune 500 companies headquartered within city boundaries, behind New York City, Houston, and Dallas.[145] Several major national and international companies are headquartered in metro Atlanta, including four Fortune 100 companies: The Coca-Cola Company, Home Depot, United Parcel Service, Delta Air Lines, AT&T Mobility, and Newell Rubbermaid. Other headquarters for some major companies in Atlanta and around the metro area include Arby's, Chick-fil-A, Earthlink, Equifax, First Data, Gentiva Health Services, Georgia-Pacific, NCR, Oxford Industries, RaceTrac Petroleum, Southern Company, SunTrust Banks, Mirant, 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. As of 2006 Atlanta Metropolitan Area ranks as the 10th largest cybercity (high-tech center) in the US, with 126,700 high-tech jobs.[146]
Delta Air Lines is the city's largest employer and the metro area's third largest.[147] 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.[148]
Atlanta has a sizable financial sector. SunTrust Banks, the seventh largest bank by asset holdings in the United States,[149] has its home office on Peachtree Street in downtown.[150] 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.[151] Wachovia announced plans in August 2006 to place its new credit-card division in Atlanta,[152] 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.[153]
Atlanta is also home to a growing Biotechnology sector, gaining recognition through such events as the 2009 BIO International Convention.[154] Atlanta is also the headquarters of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Region II.
The auto manufacturing sector in metropolitan Atlanta has suffered setbacks recently, including the 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. Kia, however, has opened a new assembly plant near West Point, Georgia.[155]
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, Boomerang, TNT, Turner South, Turner Classic Movies, CNN International, CNN en Español, HLN, and CNN Airport Network—centered their operations in Atlanta as well (Turner South has since been sold). Turner Broadcasting is a division of Time Warner. The Weather Channel, owned by a consortium of NBC Universal, Blackstone Group, and Bain Capital, has its offices in the Cumberland district northwest of downtown Atlanta.
Cox Enterprises, a privately held company controlled by James C. Kennedy, his sister Blair Parry-Okeden and their aunt Anne Cox Chambers, has substantial media holdings in and beyond Atlanta; it is headquartered in the city of Sandy Springs.[156][157] Its Cox Communications division, headquartered in unincorporated DeKalb County,[158] is the third-largest cable television service provider in the United States.[159]
Unincorporated DeKalb County is also home to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Adjacent to Emory University, with a staff of nearly 15,000 including: engineers, entomologists, epidemiologists, biologists, physicians, veterinarians, behavioral scientists, nurses, medical technologists, economists, health communicators, toxicologists, chemists, computer scientists, and statisticians. CDC has 10 other offices throughout the United States and Puerto Rico, and other staff in 45 countries around the world.[160]
Atlanta is governed by a mayor and the Atlanta City Council. The city council consists of 15 representatives—one from each of the city's 12 districts and three at-large positions (a district system superseded the ward system in 1954). The mayor may veto a bill passed by the council, but the council can override the veto with a two-thirds majority.[161] The mayor of Atlanta is Kasim Reed.
Every mayor elected since 1973 has been black.[162] In 2001, Shirley Franklin became the first woman to be elected Mayor of Atlanta, and the first African-American woman to serve as mayor of a major southern city.[163] Atlanta city politics suffered from a notorious reputation for corruption during the 1990s administration of Bill Campbell, who was convicted by a federal jury in 2006 on three counts of tax evasion in connection with gambling income he received while Mayor during trips he took with city contractors.[164]
As the state capital, Atlanta is the site of most of Georgia's state government. The Georgia State Capitol building, located downtown, houses the offices of the governor, lieutenant governor and secretary of state, as well as the General Assembly. The Governor's Mansion is located on West Paces Ferry Road, in a residential section of Buckhead. The city has several properties relating to the United States federal government, including the John C. Godbold Federal Building, Sam Nunn Atlanta Federal Center, Richard B. Russell Federal Building, and the Martin Luther King Jr. Federal Building.[165] Atlanta also serves as the home of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia; Atlanta is the headquarters of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta (the Sixth District of the Federal Reserve).
Crime in Atlanta has been consistently dropping. Between 2001 and 2009 the crime rate in Atlanta dropped by 40 percent, according to the FBI. Homicide fell 57 percent. Rape is down 72 percent. Violent crime overall is down 55 percent. Atlanta’s public safety improvement has occurred at more than twice the rate of the rest of the country. Crime is down across the country, but Atlanta’s improvement has far surpassed the national trend. This relative improvement explains why Atlanta—after ranking in the top five highest crime cities for most of the previous three decades—now ranks 31st. Atlanta has lower crime than Salt Lake City, Orlando and Tacoma, Washington.[166] The city is served by the Atlanta Police Department, which has an estimated 1,700 officers working in the force. Atlanta is divided into six police zones.
| Historical populations | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Census | City[167] | Region[168] | ||
| 1850 | 2,572 | N/A | ||
| 1860 | 9,554 | N/A | ||
| 1870 | 21,789 | N/A | ||
| 1880 | 37,409 | N/A | ||
| 1890 | 65,533 | N/A | ||
| 1900 | 89,872 | 419,375 | ||
| 1910 | 154,839 | 522,442 | ||
| 1920 | 200,616 | 622,283 | ||
| 1930 | 270,366 | 715,391 | ||
| 1940 | 302,288 | 820,579 | ||
| 1950 | 331,314 | 997,666 | ||
| 1960 | 487,455 | 1,312,474 | ||
| 1970 | 496,973 | 1,763,626 | ||
| 1980 | 425,022 | 2,233,324 | ||
| 1990 | 394,017 | 2,959,950 | ||
| 2000 | 416,474 | 4,112,198 | ||
| 2010 | 420,003 | 5,729,304 | ||
| *Estimates[169][170][171] Region: Combined Statistical Area (CSA) |
||||
The 2010 Census indicates a population of 420,003 – 22.4% lower than 2009 estimates of 540,921.[172] The difference between the 2010 official count and the 2009 estimates caused some to question the reliability of the 2010 count.[173] However, Atlanta's daytime population is much larger. According to a 2000 daytime population estimate by the Census Bureau,[174] over 250,000 more people commuted to Atlanta on any given workday, boosting the city's estimated daytime population to 676,431. This is an increase of 62.4% over Atlanta's resident population, making it the largest gain in daytime population in the country among cities with fewer than 500,000 residents.
The median income for a household in the city was $47,464 and the median income for a family was $59,711. About 21.8% of the population and 17.2% of families lived below the poverty line.[175]
The 2010 and 2000 composition of Atlanta by race, ethnicity and foreign-born status was:[176][177][178][179]
| Race, ethnicity, or foreign-born status |
Pop. 2010 | % of total 2010 | Pop. 2000 | % of total 2000 | absolute change 2000-2010 |
% change 2000-2010 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Black | 226,894 | 54.0% | 255,689 | 61.4% | -31,678 | -12.3% |
| White | 161,115 | 38.4% | 138,352 | 33.2% | 22,763 | 16.5% |
| White non-Hispanic | 152,377 | 36.3% | 130,222 | 31.3% | 22,155 | 17.0% |
| Asian and Pacific Islander | 13,188 | 3.1% | 8,219 | 1.9% | 4,969 | 60.5% |
| Hispanic or Latino of any race | 21,815 | 5.2% | 18,720 | 4.5% | 3,095 | 16.5% |
| Foreign-born | 33,621[180] | 8.0%[181] | 27,352 | 6.6% | 6,269 | 22.9% |
Atlanta is, as of 2010, the nation's 4th largest black-majority city and has long been known as a "black mecca" for its role as a center of black wealth, political power, education, and culture including film and music.[182]
The proportion of whites in the city's population has grown dramatically: according to the Brookings Institution, faster than that of any other U.S. city between 2000-2006. Between 2000 and 2010, Atlanta's white population had increased by 22,763 people, from 31% to 38%, more than triple the increase between 1990 and 2000. During the same time, the city's black population decreased by 31,678 people, shrinking from 61.4% of the city's population in 2000 to 54.0% in 2010.[39][183][183][184]
Since the 1990s, the number of Latin American immigrants in Metro Atlanta has greatly increased, with the Hispanic population of the region nearly doubling from 247,477 in 2000 to 477,891 in 2010.[185][186] In Atlanta, the Hispanic population increased by 16.5% from 2000 to 2010.[180] These immigrant communities have altered the economic, demographic, cultural, and religious landscape of the city.[187]
The city of Atlanta also has one of the highest LGBT populations per capita. It ranks 3rd of all major cities, behind San Francisco and slightly behind Seattle, with 12.8% of the city's total population recognizing themselves as gay, lesbian, or bisexual.[188][189]
According to the 2000 United States Census (revised in 2004), Atlanta has the twelfth highest proportion of single-person households nationwide among cities of 100,000 or more residents, which was at 38.5%.[190]
The city has more than 30 institutions of higher education, including Emory University, a prominent liberal arts and research institution that has been consistently ranked as one of the top 20 schools in the United States by U.S. News & World Report and is widely considered one of the leading universities in the world; Georgia Institute of Technology, a premier research university that has been ranked among the nation's top ten public universities since 1999 by U.S. News & World Report; Georgia State University, a comprehensive public research university located downtown; SCAD-Atlanta, the Atlanta campus of Savannah College of Art and Design, a private arts university; the Mercer University Cecil B. Day Graduate and Professional Studies campus; Morris Brown College, a four-year, private, coed, liberal arts college; and the Atlanta University Center, the largest contiguous consortium of historically-black colleges, comprising Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse College, Spelman College, and Interdenominational Theological Center.
Greater Atlanta contains several notable colleges and universities, including Oglethorpe University, a small liberal arts school named for the founder of Georgia with a faculty rated 15th in the nation by the Princeton Review; Agnes Scott College, a women's college; Kennesaw State University, the third largest university in Georgia; other state-run institutions such as Georgia Gwinnett College, Clayton State University, Atlanta Metropolitan College, Georgia Perimeter College, Southern Polytechnic State University, University of West Georgia, and Gordon College; as well as private colleges, including Reinhardt University and the Atlanta Christian College.
The public school system (Atlanta Public Schools) is run by the Atlanta Board of Education with interim superintendent Erroll Davis. As of 2007, the system has an active enrollment of 49,773 students, attending a total of 106 schools: including 58 elementary schools (three of which operate on a year-round calendar), 16 middle schools, 20 high schools, and 7 charter schools.[191] The school system also supports two alternative schools for middle and/or high school students, two single-sex academies, and an adult learning center.[191] The school system also owns and operates radio station WABE-FM 90.1, a National Public Radio affiliate, and Public Broadcasting Service television station WPBA 30.
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (IATA: ATL, ICAO: KATL), the world's busiest airport as measured by passenger traffic and by aircraft traffic,[192] provides air service between Atlanta and many national and international destinations. Delta Air Lines and AirTran Airways maintain their largest hubs at the airport.[193][194] Situated 10 miles (16 km) south of downtown, the airport covers most of the land inside a wedge formed by Interstate 75, Interstate 85, and Interstate 285. The MARTA rail system has a station in 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.[195] 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.
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 combine to form the Downtown Connector (I-75/85) through the middle of the city. The combined highway carries more than 340,000 vehicles per day. The Connector is one of the ten most congested segments of interstate highway in the United States.[196] The intersection of I-85 and I-285 in Doraville—officially called the Tom Moreland Interchange, is known to most residents as Spaghetti Junction.[197] Metropolitan Atlanta is approached by 13 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) all terminate just within or beyond the Perimeter, with the exception of Langford Parkway, limiting the transportation options in the central city.
This strong automotive reliance has resulted in heavy traffic and contributes to Atlanta's air pollution, which has made Atlanta one of the more polluted cities in the country.[198] The Clean Air Campaign was created in 1996 to help reduce pollution in metro Atlanta.
Around 2008 the Atlanta metro area has ranked at or near the top of the longest average commute times in the U.S. Also, the Atlanta metro area has ranked at or near the top for worst traffic in the country.[199]
Notwithstanding heavy automotive usage, Atlanta's subway system, operated by Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA), is the eighth busiest in the country.[200] Feeding into the rail system is MARTA's bus system. the 14th largest in the country. MARTA rail lines connect many key destinations in the area such as the airport, Downtown, Midtown, Buckhead, Perimeter Center, and Decatur. However key central destinations, such as Emory University and Turner Field, remain unserved.
There is no commuter rail in Metro Atlanta at this time, and MARTA rail lines only reach the innermost suburbs such as Sandy Springs, Brookhaven, College Park and Decatur – only Fulton and DeKalb Counties chose to join MARTA; Cobb, Gwinnett and other counties chose to stay out of MARTA. To provide a public transportation option for suburban and exurban commuters, the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority operates the Xpress bus service from Downtown and Midtown Atlanta to 12 counties.
Public transportation originally consisted of horsecars (from 1871), which were replaced by electric streetcars (1889–1949), which were in turn replaced by trolleybuses ("trackless trolleys") (1937–1963) and buses. In 1963 all existing trolleybuses were replaced by buses. Various proposals would bring streetcars back to Atlanta. The Downtown Connector route, now funded, will connect Centennial Olympic Park with Peachtree Center and the MLK historic site. Other proposed routes include lines along the 22-mile Beltline around Atlanta's central neighborhoods, as well as on Peachtree Street, Ralph David Abernathy Blvd., North Ave., and 17th St.[201] Proposals also exist for a commuter rail system, MARTA rail line extensions, light rail lines, bus rapid transit, and more suburban express buses.[202]
Atlanta began as a railroad town and it 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 the home of 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 many cities between New Orleans and New York. The Amtrak station is located several miles north of downtown—and it 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.
Cycling is a growing mode of transportation in Atlanta, taking 1.1% of all commutes in 2009, up from 0.3% in 2000,[203] and organizations like the Atlanta Bicycle Coalition[204] continue to lobby for increased accessibility to bicyclists. However, heavy automobile traffic, Atlanta's famed hills, the lack of bike lanes on many streets, and difficulty in crossing major streets deter many residents from cycling frequently in Atlanta.[205] The city's transportation plan calls for the construction of 226 miles of bike lanes by 2020. The Beltline, which will include bike lanes, may help the city achieve this goal.[206]
Atlanta, as the home of 24 general consulates, contains the seventh-highest concentration of diplomatic missions in the United States. Most of the diplomatic missions are located in Buckhead, Midtown, or Peachtree Center. The city is also home to 36 honorary consulates.[207] In 2011, it was announced that Atlanta would be the host of the next Indian consulate.[208]
Atlanta has 19 sister cities, as designated by Sister Cities International, Inc. (SCI):[209]
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The population of the Atlanta region spreads across a metropolitan area of 8,376 square miles (21,694 km2)—a land area larger than that of Massachusetts.[212] Because Georgia contains the second highest number of counties in the country,[213] area residents live under a heavily decentralized collection of governments. As of the 2000 census, fewer than one in twelve residents of the metropolitan area lived inside Atlanta city proper.[214]
| Marietta | Sandy Springs | Norcross | ||
| Douglasville | Lithonia | |||
| Atlanta | ||||
| Columbus | Riverdale | Panthersville |
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