September 24: 1st Day in Atlanta

So Day One is done, and after four solid hours learning about a metro that has attracted 100,000 new people a year for twenty years, let's get right to it: what's Atlanta got that Philly doesn't?

A thriving Rotary club, for one. Philadelphia's booster club tradition pales in comparison to what Milton James Little, Jr., President and CEO of the United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta described. "I've never been in a place where Rotary still has the role it has here," he said. "There is an extremely robust leadership that's always looking for new blood."

Olympic memories, for another, and with them a big shot of civic confidence. As A.J. Robinson, President of Central Atlanta Progress, put it: "At its core, the Olympics solidified in Atlanta's gene pool the idea that anything is possible."

Confederate flag lovers, for a third. At the urging of the region's Fortune 500 companies - not to mention city of Atlanta residents - former Governor Roy Barnes took the symbol of secession off the state's flag; he paid for it at the ballot box. "I believe in full voter participation. But I made some white guys come out that hadn't voted in fifty years," he said. "They usually hunt that time of year. That year, the deer were safe."

(Fellow panelist and Fayette County Commission Chair Jack Smith confirmed it: "I get around Georgia. I have relatives all over the state. I can assure you, the flag did get him beat.")

But based on what we heard today, the biggest difference between this region's civic culture and that of Greater Philadelphia may be the dominance of its business sector. The "Atlanta Way" is often invoked to describe the city's history of racial cooperation, but our panelists used that term to describe a business-driven civic process in which government tends not to lead, but to follow. Robinson put it this way: "When we [the business community] feel threatened, we create something and sell it into our political system in a way that gives them just enough say in it that we can call it a public/private partnership."

Robinson said that this culture is rooted in two things: Atlanta's long history as a center of commerce and business and Georgia's long history of antipathy toward government. "The state is historically extremely conservative," he said. "We have more government than we know what to do with, but it doesn't have a whole lot of power." As the saying goes, that seems to be a feature, not a bug. Robinson said that powerful and influential politicians get that way by virtue of their ability to network and sell ideas, given the fact that their institutional power is limited.

And as far as racial harmony, Ed Baker, Publisher of the Atlanta Business Chronicle, counseled caution. "Black business and white business don't integrate in a meaningful way," he said adding that the city's academic and corporate communities also fail to collaborate as much as they could. "In some ways, we get more credit than we deserve."

But most of the panelists said that the city does have a unique and powerful culture of civic inclusion. Little, who came to his position with the United Way from a post in Boston, was on the cover of Atlanta magazines before he started his new job. "There's an expectation," he said: an assumption that leaders in any field should be putting some of their energy and interest into boosting the city as a whole. "Every CEO is expected to be a part of some civic initiative."

There's no question that despite the city's persistent poverty, race relations have come a long way since the days when the Klan burned crosses on Stone Mountain. Said Little: "People are in places now where they never thought they'd be." But our panelists also made it clear that it isn't easy to integrate new minorities into a city grown used to a black-and-white racial equation. No one seemed quite sure how the region's thriving populations of Asians and Hispanics will fit in.

And likewise, no one seems quite sure of how the city will adjust to the waning of its late 20^th century boom. The astronomical population growth has slowed. The endless suburban expansion has bogged down in sprawl. Even the signature corporate culture is now changing as a new generation of CEOs deal with growing pressure from shareholders, leaving less time for - and in some cases, less interest in - Atlantans.

So this is the background, the canvas on which Atlantans must work. On Thursday, we'll dig into specific ways they're w,orking to improve economic growth, educational attainment, housing and more. And fortunately we won't have to sit in the same place all day to do it. As Steve Wray put it - - wear your walking shoes!

photo: Adam Komich