Atlanta has come a long way since it burned to the ground during Sherman's "March to the Sea" in 1864. This is the city from which Martin Luther King, Jr., launched his social revolution, and the city where Ted Turner launched his media empire. It is home to many of America's largest corporations and is one of the top convention destinations in the country.
Atlanta may be best known, however, for hosting the 1996 Summer Olympics. The city went all out in its preparations for the 1996 Games, with new parks, hotels, and sports venues. In the center of downtown is Woodruff Park, which was spruced up to the tune of $5 million. The Olympic Village, erected just north of the central business district, now provides housing for Georgia State University students. South of Olympic Village, and stretching to the CNN Center, is the 21-acre Centennial Olympic Park -- a major gathering place during the Olympics, with lawns, gardens, and a dramatic Olympic-rings fountain. The park regularly hosts concerts, street festivals, and other cultural events, and anchors the city's efforts to revitalize commercial and residential development in this once-neglected corner of downtown. The Olympic Stadium, site of the opening and closing ceremonies, as well as track and field events, has been reincarnated as Turner Field, home of the Atlanta Braves baseball team.
Since the Olympics, Atlantans have had a little time to think about their future and how to shape it. They've always been an optimistic bunch, but the recent breakneck development that began with the Olympics and still continues, has many local citizens wondering if they have gotten too much of a good thing. Atlanta has had big-city problems like crime, urban blight, and clogged freeways for some time now. But the overall quality of life remains high. Currently, the spotlight is not on growth and how to encourage it, but on growth and how to manage it. Of great concern is traffic -- horrendous by any standards -- and the accompanying decline in air quality. Everyone is rethinking the role that the automobile plays, and there's a lot of discussion about how to improve public transportation and make the metro area more pedestrian-friendly. Of great significance is the recent development downtown. For years, city leaders have tried to encourage "in-town" living, and it's finally beginning to take hold as developers remake old buildings into attractive apartments and lofts. The mark of a great city is an attractive and vital downtown area where people live as well as work, and Atlanta finally appears to be headed in that direction.
Today -- For Atlanta, a new century means a new effort to spruce up its image, especially that of the downtown area, which for years has been a seedy section of town that not even the locals ventured to after dark. Today, attractions such as the Georgia Aquarium (opened in 2006), Centennial Olympic Park, the CNN Studio, and the new World of Coca-Cola (opening in May 2007) are drawing scores of residents and visitors alike to a shiny new downtown area that sprouts new offerings with great frequency -- and much success. In 2004, Atlanta was named the number-one city for African Americans by Black Enterprise magazine. And Mayor Shirley Franklin has been highly active in the quest to pitch Atlanta as a tourist destination: In 2006, the city branded itself with a spirally red "ATL" logo and the slogan "Every day is opening day." The campaign drew criticism early on, but has begun to grow on folks. Regardless, the number of visitors to this heart of the South continues to increase.
The Standing Peachtree -- Today, just about everything in Atlanta is called "Peachtree" something, but the first Peachtree reference dates back to 1782, when explorers discovered a Cherokee village on the Chattahoochee River called Standing Peachtree. Since peach trees are not native to the region, some historians maintain the village was actually named for a towering "pitch" tree (a resinous pine). Nevertheless, the Indian village became the location of Fort Peachtree, a tiny frontier outpost, during the War of 1812; a Peachtree Road connecting Fort Peachtree to Fort Daniel (in Gwinnett County) was completed by 1813.
