Atlanta’s challenges come after Super Bowl
Jarrett Bell: Revitalizing struggling neighborhoods a long-term effort
ATLANTA – You don’t have to venture far from the site of the NFL’s showcase event this week to find the Super Contrast. Just go across Northside Drive.
For all that the glitz of Mercedes-Benz Stadium represents about the vitality of a progressive city, the blight of the Westside neighborhoods adjacent to the sporting palace — Vine City, English Avenue and Castleberry Hill — symbolizes the challenge that will continue to exist long after the Patriots and Rams settle their business in Super Bowl LIII.
It’s the most distressed area of the city, where more than half the lots are vacant and almost half the residents live below the poverty line — in the shadow of a $1.6 billion stadium that included a record $700 million in public funds.
Not a shock that Keisha Lance Bottoms, Atlanta’s mayor, labels the zone west of downtown as “Ground Zero” for a mission to preserve and create more affordable housing in the city. Hardly surprising that given the typical increased cash flow generated by the stadium, Arthur Blank, the Falcons’ billionaire owner, is knee-deep in pledging millions toward various revitalization projects.
“The building of a stadium takes three years of actual construction and five, six, seven years of planning,” Blank told USA TODAY. “The Westside is a commitment for the next 10, 15, 20 years.”
“The building of a stadium takes three years of actual construction and five, six, seven years of planning. The Westside is a commitment for the next 10, 15, 20 years.” Arthur Blank Falcons’ owner
It’s no wonder Tracy Bates, a longtime resident of Vine City, is skeptical.
She has heard the pledges before. The last time a new stadium went up, the now-demolished Georgia Dome in 1992, there were all sorts of promises that fueled hope for a revitalized Westside. Big problem: The pledges weren’t legally binding. They turned out to be essentially bullet points on a wish list.
As Bates remembers it, money supposedly set aside for Westside never reached the goal line.
“That never happened,” Bates told USA TODAY during a session with a group of community activists. “You’ve got the evidence with the condition of the community.”
Besides boarded-up houses, there’s high unemployment, systemic issues with education and crime. The population of the Westside communities has decreased by more than two-thirds, since a peak of more than 50,000 in the 1960s. Less than 10 percent of the residents are homeowners.
Bates is part of the resistance. She was one of four people who filed a lawsuit against the city a few years ago, challenging the bonds used for the stadium and infrastructure. They lost the suit and the appeal but are among activists who seemingly remain resilient after one big event after another has come to town — remember the 1996 Olympics? — only to see their neighborhoods get worse.
If history doesn’t repeat itself with unfulfilled promises, there’s the threat of gentrification — that longtime Westside residents will be displaced because they won’t be able to afford to live there.
In other words, revitalized for whom? Another type of history, in Atlanta and elsewhere, has been reflected with urban renewal often replacing lower-income people with the more affluent residents who in previous generations fled the cities for the suburbs.
A revitalized Westside would possess enormous potential, given its proximity to downtown, Coca-Cola’s headquarters, Georgia Tech and other vital entities.
“We’ve experienced gentrification throughout this city,” said Bottoms, a native Atlantan who previously served on the Atlanta City Council and whose great-grandmother’s home stood on a site that is now the Georgia World Congress Center. “There are some neighborhoods where we are really behind the 8ball, but the Westside is the one area where there’s an opportunity for us to stop the bleed.”
Affordable housing was a pillar of the campaign that resulted in Bottoms becoming mayor in 2018, and she recently appointed the first chief housing officer in the city’s history. She said that with $100 million raised in public/private investment capital over the past year, the goal is to create 20,000 affordable housing units over the next eight years.
Still, it will take some convincing for people in Vine City. On Sunday, roughly two dozen members of the Vine City Civic Association gathered less than a quarter-mile from the home where civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. settled his family, and for more than two hours they aired concerns about the future of the community and the impact of the stadium. It was pretty much a town hall meeting to kick off Super Bowl week … except it had nothing to do with football beyond association.
Bishop John Lewis III, chair of the Association, gave a moving account of why he protested to save the demolition of the two historic churches — Friendship Baptist and Mount Vernon Baptist — that sold their properties on Northside Drive to accommodate the new stadium. The churches, which Lewis isn’t officially connected to, relocated after pocketing tens of millions of dollars.
“That’s a part of our history, our heritage, our culture, that can never be replaced,” Lewis said. “We don’t want to become a community reduced to plaques.”
No doubt, there’s some rich history in Vine City, which is where the historically black institutions, Spelman College, Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse College and Morris Brown College, are situated. In addition to MLK, Vine City was once home, too, to legendary W.E.B. DuBois and original NAACP president Walter White. It’s where James Weldon Johnson wrote the lyrics to “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” historically known as “The Black National Anthem.” And where Sam Cooke and Ella Fitzgerald frequented, back in the day.
Lewis, though, is also suspicious about how the $15 million pledged by the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation and another $15 million in matching funds from the city will be used in community enhancements. He said, “The devil is always in the details.”
Blank’s foundation touts its activity on several fronts, including the establishment of a workforce development center, a security initiative in which it partnered with the Atlanta Police Foundation, support for a leadership development program through the Atlanta schools and the creation of the only parks in Vine City and English Avenue.
The Vine City group, however, bemoans outside investors buying up properties and fueling blight by not maintaining them, which sends the signal that they are being held merely for the profits that could come with revitalization.
Although Blank said he’s committed to giving long-term residents the opportunity to stay, he also pointed out the financial benefits of selling their properties. Like a true capitalist.
Then again, with a homeowner rate of 8 percent, selling is not an option for most.
Then there’s the disconnect between longtime residents and the Westside Future Fund, a non-profit organization directed by an assortment of corporate and civic leaders, supported by Blank.
Listen to Bates and others speak passionately about their community, and it’s natural to think they should be involved, significantly, with any revitalization plans. But that’s hardly the case.
As Bates put it, “There’s no empowerment of the community.”
That would be the existing community.
Building a sparkling, state-of-the-art stadium and landing the crown jewel of a Super Bowl among other marquee events are significant achievements for Blank and other civic leaders.
Yet an even greater challenge is to revitalize the surrounding environment.
“It’s bigger than this game,” Bottoms said. “It’s about having influence on generations.”
That would be, well, super.